Iran's participation in the U.S.-hosted 2026 World Cup promised to be an uncertain, contentious matter even before the U.S. and Israel started raining bombs on Iranian political leaders and schoolgirls alike. The American government had already denied visas to several members of the delegation Iran planned to send to the World Cup draw back in December, as part of a blanket travel ban on Iranian citizens that would've prevented the vast majority of Iranian fans from being able to attend this summer's event. Another controversy arose soon after the draw, when Iranian and Egyptian officials raised a stink about a pre-planned LGBTQ Pride event in Seattle that the draw happened to schedule for a group-stage Iran-Egypt match. Naturally, those little points of friction, and the longstanding geopolitical tetchiness they reflected, came to a head in the form of the war that FIFA Peace Prize winner and known war criminal Donald Trump decided to wage on Iran. Iran's now-official response was hardly unexpected.
"Considering that this corrupt regime has assassinated our leader," Iran sports minister Ahmad Donyamali said on Wednesday in reference to the U.S. government, "under no circumstances can we participate in the World Cup." He added, "Given the malicious actions they have carried out against Iran, they have forced two wars on us over eight or nine months and have killed and martyred thousands of our people. Therefore, we certainly cannot have such a presence."
Donyamali's comments came on the heels of a related report on Tuesday, when FIFA president and autocrat ass-licker Gianni Infantino said on Instagram that he had met with our dear leader to talk about what the ongoing war meant for the World Cup, reporting back that "President Trump reiterated that the Iranian team is, of course, welcome to compete in the tournament in the United States." Infantino ended his message noting that "We all need an event like the FIFA World Cup to bring people together now more than ever, and I sincerely thank the President of the United States for his support, as it shows once again that Football Unites the World." As for the man himself, when asked last week for his thoughts about Iran at the World Cup, Trump responded "I really don't care."
True, it is hard to buy the argument that soccer is a useful tool in uniting the world in times of senseless war, especially when the man making that argument recently invented and then awarded a pacifist prize to the guy who started the war, but I do think there's something to it. What the Iran World Cup debacle shows is that soccer and the world as a political entity are indeed inextricably united.
I bet Trump really would welcome Iran to the upcoming tournament, as it would be a small but real legitimation of his power and impunity, in the same way Israel's Palestinian genocide is legitimated when FIFA doesn't kick them out of the game. By the same token, what's left of the Islamic Republic—and it appears to be a lot more than the Americans and Israelis had originally bargained for at the start of their ill-conceived attacks—would do well to trumpet their boycott of the world's most important sporting event, using this principled stance against a "corrupt regime" to legitimate their own corrupt, unpopular, and despotic government. Let's not forget that many of the men who potentially would've represented Iran in the U.S. this summer are themselves deeply opposed to the Islamic Republic, as are many members of the women's national team who are presently caught in limbo in Australia at the conclusion of a different soccer tournament.
In the same way that the fate of those women soccer players has become a political game—regime loyalists condemning the team's anthem protest on one side, Western leaders like Trump himself using protests of the Iran government's atrocities to justify new atrocities—the ultimate decision about whether or not Iran plays in the World Cup will be, first and foremost, a political choice. Maybe the most jarring thing of all is that the choice is still so undecided. Donyamali has voiced his opinion, and Trump, via the ass-licker, has voiced his. In normal circumstances you'd imagine that the opinion of Iran's sports minister would be decisive, but there's no telling whether FIFA's Peace Prize awardee might keep claiming lives until Iran's official position is his own.
