USA Dominates Brazil in Exciting Copa America Final!

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. World Cup heat on Fifa: ‘one of the hosts of this biggest sporting event in the world is party to a war’. | Credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images This summer’s controversy-laden men’s Fifa World Cup took on a whole new layer of jeopardy when the US, the main co-host, attacked Iran, one of the competitors.

The football tournament, hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico and due to kick off on 11 June, had already been beset with criticism . There were worries about logistics and infrastructure, calls for a boycott over Donald Trump’s travel bans , and fears about fans’ safety in a US where Ice agents have been sweeping into cities for violent immigration crackdowns . Fifa itself has also been under fire – for its president Gianni Infantino ’s sycophancy to the US president, and its “strategic partnership” with Trump’s Board of Peace .

Now Iran’s participation has been thrown into doubt by the war in the Middle East . Fifa seems unwilling to grant the Iranian football federation’s request to relocate its US fixtures to Mexico, and Trump has already said it would not be “appropriate” for the Iranian players to take part “for their own life and safety”. Will Iran participate?

“When Trump has explicitly stated that he cannot ensure the security of the Iranian national team, we will certainly not travel to the United States,” said Mehdi Taj, the president of Iran’s football federation, on the Iranian embassy in Mexico’s X account. Moving Iran’s fixtures to Mexico would be a tricky logistically but not unprecedented. But then there’s the issue of the knockout stages: if the US and Iran both finish as the runner-up in their group, they would play each other in last 32.