Iran pull out of World Cup 2026 with a hard-hitting statement: the reasons | OneFootball

Ahmad Doyanmali, Minister of Sports, stated that his country's team will not attend the top sports event, following the attacks by the United States and Israel that have sparked a war in the Middle East.

Ahmad Doyanmali, Iran's Minister of Sports, stated that his country will not play in the 2026 World Cup through a harsh statement against the United States, which had opened its doors just hours before: “Since this corrupt government has assassinated our leader (Ali Khamenei), there are no conditions for us to participate.”

Doyanmali continued: “We have been subjected to two wars in eight or nine months and several thousand of our citizens have been killed. Therefore, we have no chance of competing in this manner”. Finally, he asserted: “If another country were the host, surely the international community would have reacted and stripped them of the hosting rights”, in a conversation with the German Press Agency.

The United States has launched two offensives against the Iranian regime since Trump assumed his second term. First, the Midnight Hammer Operation was carried out, which started and ended on June 22, 2025, consisting of bombings on three nuclear plants in the Middle Eastern country. Second, the war that began on February 28 and is still ongoing. In fact, in recent hours, the Republican leader promised “never-before-seen reprisals”.

Meanwhile, the president of the Iranian Football Federation, Mehdi Taj, asked: “What sensible person would send their national team to the United States if the World Cup were as political as the Asian Cup was?” In Australia, the Iranian women's team did not sing their national anthem, and six players requested asylum from Anthony Albanese's government.

The Persian Lions had qualified for Group G of the top sports event, which will begin on June 11, and their three mandatory matches were in the United States. According to their schedule, they were supposed to face New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles and Egypt in Seattle.

Minutes before Doyanmali's statements, Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, had revealed: “Yesterday I met with President Trump. We talked about the current situation in Iran and the fact that their team has qualified to participate in the World Cup. During the conversation, Trump reiterated that their team is, of course, welcome to compete.”

However, Iranian citizens are not allowed to enter the United States due to the visa system, which the Trump administration has made stricter and also affects Haiti, Senegal, or Ivory Coast, who have also qualified for the event.

Now, FIFA must find a substitute. Section 6.7 of the regulations specifies that “if a participating federation withdraws or is excluded from the FIFA 26 World Cup, FIFA will decide at its sole discretion on the matter and take the actions it deems necessary. FIFA may decide, in particular, to replace that federation with another.”

Which teams could benefit from this withdrawal? If the slot awarded to the Asian Confederation (8.5 spots) is maintained, the best-positioned team would be Iraq, which earned the right to play the international playoff on March 31 against the winner of the semifinal between Bolivia and Suriname. In that case, the team from United Arab Emirates, which lost to Iraq in the Asian zone playoff, could attend that playoff.

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