FIFA's desperate bid to keep Iran in World Cup after Congress row | OneFootball

It is now two of the three host countries of the World Cup, which will begin next June 11, that have raised their diplomatic tensions with Iran, which despite having already qualified its national team still faces doubts, for those reasons, over its actual participation.

Iran’s poor relations with the United States are well known, worsened by the joint bombing with Israel that Donald Trump’s government ordered against Tehran at the end of February. Now, tensions have also spread to Canada after the president of the Iranian Football Federation, Mehdi Taj, and other officials accompanying him were denied entry into the country, preventing them from taking part in the 76th FIFA Congress to be held this Thursday in Vancouver, with all eyes on the organization of the World Cup.

The fact that the federation officials had obtained their visas on Monday, boarded a flight to Canada, and once there were informed that they would not be allowed into the country was seen as a “humiliation,” and Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported “inappropriate treatment by immigration officials.” This led the delegation to take another flight to Turkey, abandoning any chance of attending the Congress.

The situation has become so tense that the risk of Iran’s national team withdrawing from the World Cup, for which it qualified on merit, is growing, a scenario that Gianni Infantino himself has always dismissed. In fact, in an attempt to rebuild those diplomatic ties that the United States, and now Canada, seem intent on weakening, the FIFA president made a desperate offer to the federation officials.

According to reports cited by the French outlet RMC Sport, the intention of the president of world football’s governing body is to arrange a meeting in the coming days at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, also attended by other senior officials from the organization. At that meeting, Mehdi Taj will be briefed on much of what was discussed and decided at the Vancouver Congress, but above all an effort will be made to reach a decision on Iran’s national team’s participation in the World Cup.

The absence of the president of the Iranian Federation at the 76th FIFA Congress being held this Thursday in Vancouver, which is also one of the World Cup host cities, only increases the uncertainty over his national team’s participation in the tournament, something that has been at risk since the United States, the main host country, ordered a bombing of Tehran together with Israel at the end of February.

Despite the assurances Gianni Infantino tried to offer, Iranian Football Federation president Mehdi Taj had already made clear that the final word on whether the national team would participate or not would belong to the Iranian government, which will not look favorably on the recent denial of entry to the federation officials in Canada.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.