The Iranian soccer federation claimed its ticket allocation for supporters has been pulled days before the tournament is set to kick off.
The federation, the FFIRI, said in a statement that it had already sold tickets to its group stage matches, but now could not provide them with those tickets.
“This is despite the fact that many Iranian football fans, relying on the officially announced process, had already made the necessary plans to attend the matches,” the federation said. “This development raises serious questions about the interference of non-sporting and political considerations in the organisation of the world’s biggest football event.”
Each federation gets about 8% of tickets for each match to give to supporters. In December, FIFA said it would price about 500 of those tickets per match for each federation at $60.
The FFIRI called on FIFA to “uphold the principles of neutrality, fairness, and established regulations.” FIFA President Gianni Infantino has come under fire from some football leaders, especially in Europe, who claim he has shown favoritism toward the U.S., including by creating the FIFA Peace Prize for President Donald Trump.
A person familiar with the situation tells Front Office Sports the issue stems from U.S.-imposed financial restrictions on dealings with Iran and people from the country.
“FIFA is working closely with the IR Iran Football Federation to identify compliant solutions that maximise opportunities for Iranian supporters to attend matches,” the governing body said in a statement.
That number of impacted Iranian supporters is about 200 per match, the person familiar says.
A State Department spokesperson reiterated a comment it had previously issued about Iran, saying the team’s traveling party has received the “necessary” visas to compete in the tournament. “We will not allow the Iranian team to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses,” the spokesperson said.
Iran is under a travel ban from the U.S. without exemptions for soccer fans, meaning that most of the tickets likely wouldn’t have gone to fans traveling from Iran. However, L.A. has the largest population of Iranians outside of Iran, and the team plays two matches in Southern California.
The team faces New Zealand in L.A. on June 15, Belgium in L.A. on June 21, and Egypt in Seattle on June 26. If the U.S. and Iran both place second in their respective groups, the two warring countries will face each other in the Round of 32 in Dallas on July 3.
FIFA denied Iran’s request to move its matches from the U.S. to Mexico, but the federation did get approval to move its base camp from Tucson, Ariz., to Tijuana, Mexico. Federation president Mehdi Taj framed the move as an approved request by the federation, while Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said the U.S. didn’t want Iran staying overnight in the country.
The U.S. rejected visas for more than a dozen Iranian staff and federation leaders, including Taj.
