Iran coach says U.S. treated World Cup team unfairly

Iran’s football federation said it would lodge a formal complaint with FIFA after U.S. authorities denied the team’s request to travel to Los Angeles two days before a World Cup match and kept its players under tight movement limits. The dispute has turned Iran’s campaign into a test case for how FIFA handles political friction when a host country’s security rules collide with tournament logistics.

The Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran said on June 19 that the restrictions were unfair, after U.S. authorities initially required the squad to enter the country within 24 hours of a match and leave the same day. Iran’s team had been based in Mexico and commuting for its group-stage games in the United States because of visa uncertainty and the war, a setup that left little room for normal preparation.

Coach Amir Ghalenoei said the team continued to be treated unfairly by the United States and described Iran as the tournament’s “most oppressed” team. He said the travel limits had disrupted preparation and warned that he hoped the arrangement would not set a precedent for future World Cup teams.

The criticism did not stop at the border. Iran captain Mehdi Taremi accused FIFA and president Gianni Infantino of presiding over a “disaster” World Cup and said the team had been deprived of “justice.” Taremi also said Infantino visited the locker room before Iran’s opener against New Zealand and told players the problems were tied to it being only the “beginning” of the tournament.

The U.S. eased its stance on June 23, when the Department of Homeland Security said Iran could travel into the country two days before its next match, though it still had to leave the same day afterward. That adjustment reduced the most restrictive part of the original order, but it left Iran’s schedule far from normal and preserved the sense that the team was being managed under exception rather than routine tournament rules.

The fight over travel has become part of a wider clash over fairness, with Iran using FIFA’s complaint process to challenge host-country restrictions and U.S. officials treating the squad as a security-sensitive exception. In a World Cup already shaped by politics, Iran’s case has become a live example of how quickly sports governing bodies are drawn into geopolitical disputes.