World Cup goals won’t end America’s war in Iran. Undaunted, the Iranian soccer team is planning an unprecedented move this summer: playing in a major athletic competition hosted by a wartime opponent.
The U.S. avoided the 1980 Moscow Olympics during the Cold War. The Soviet Union did the same for the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
Several sports historians said this summer’s World Cup would be the first they could think of that featured one belligerent hosting another’s athletes during a military conflict.
“As far as I know, this exact combination would be a novelty,” Victoria Harms, a history professor who specializes in sports at Johns Hopkins University, said of Iran’s participation in the World Cup.
The U.S. is hosting the June 11-July 19 soccer extravaganza through a joint bid with Mexico and Canada.
Iran was originally scheduled to set up a base camp in Arizona and play three group-stage matches on the West Coast. Then came Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28.
The off-pitch conflict sent the World Cup’s plans into question.
International sporting competitions have long overlapped with global politics. Competition organizers like FIFA and international relations organizations like the U.N. tout the peacemaking possibilities of competitions like the World Cup and the Olympics.
“All you need is a ball for people to come together,” U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said as the organization launched its “Football for the Goals” initiative with FIFA in 2022.
Historians like Ms. Harms aren’t easily convinced, though.
“The idea of peacetime athletic spectacles, whether it’s the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics, is more myth than anything else,” she said in an email to The Washington Times. “While ’peace’ is inscribed in the Olympic Charter, FIFA has always been more about money and less pretense about values and principles.”
FIFA expects to generate $13 billion in revenue from this year’s event, thanks to the 5 million fans expected to attend. The cheapest tickets for Iran’s three group-stage matches average around $300 on popular ticket resale sites, even though fans from Iran won’t be permitted to travel to the U.S. due to a travel ban.
Can’t stay here
Iran’s World Cup participation has been an issue since the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.
FIFA has consistently said the military conflict would not have any impact on the tournament. The organization refused to reschedule or relocate Iran’s matches. The logistical lift would be too costly and complicated, given the short timeline.
But President Trump made his opinion clear. Though the Iranian soccer team would be “welcome,” he urged it not to come.
“I really don’t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety,” Mr. Trump said on social media in March.
FIFA officials have not publicly wavered. They never outlined a plan to replace Iran in the newly expanded, 48-team tournament, even as representatives from Iran have openly questioned their options.
Iranian officials had asked FIFA to move their first three matches from the U.S. to Canada or Mexico.
The request was denied.
The Mexican government stepped in this week to assuage some concerns, agreeing to host Iran’s training camp. The squad was originally expected to practice in Tucson, Arizona. Now, they’ll call Tijuana home throughout the tournament.
“The United States doesn’t want the Iranian national team to stay overnight in the United States,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters.
She said a FIFA representative had inquired whether the Iranians would be able to stay overnight in Mexico.
“And we said, ‘Yes, no problem. We have no issue with that,’” she said.
Iranian officials are urging the U.S. to issue multientry visas for its players, coaches and support staff. The State Department has banned travel from Iran, though it will provide exemptions around the World Cup.
“They can’t bring a bunch of [Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Corps] terrorists into our country and pretend that they are journalists and athletic trainers,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in April.
Military service is required for men in Iran, and some members of the Iranian soccer team served in the IRGC.
“All players and technical staff, especially those who served their military service in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, should be granted visas without problems,” Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran President Mehdi Taj said this month, according to Iranian media.
Mr. Taj further noted that his team would participate “without retreating from our beliefs, culture and convictions.”
The U.S. will still host each of Iran’s group stage matches: a tilt with Egypt in Seattle and games against Belgium and New Zealand in Los Angeles.
Ironically, the match in Seattle was designated as an LGBT Pride event by local officials. Organizers said they would not drop the theme, even though homosexuality is criminalized in Egypt and Iran.
Historical angle
Regardless of their performance in the tournament, the Iranian players will make history. There is no recent evidence of a major national team intentionally joining a sporting competition hosted by a wartime enemy.
When Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics in 1936, Adolf Hitler had not started his military campaign across Europe.
Russia was hosting the Olympics in Sochi in 2014 when it invaded Crimea, which was part of Ukraine. But the 35 Ukrainian athletes weren’t initially aware that Russian soldiers were responsible for the occupation of Crimea.
Ukraine did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and both nations avoided any awkward matches after they both failed to qualify for the 2022 tournament in Qatar after the Russians invaded Ukraine.
The World Cup — and the accompanying media circus — has a history of ignoring political storms, not mediating them.
Argentina hosted the World Cup in 1978 even as the nation’s military dictatorship used the spectacle in an attempt to establish its legitimacy on a global stage. The Argentine squad ultimately won the tournament — and the fair play award — amid claims of match-fixing.
Russia and Qatar, hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, fought their own issues. Russia faced criticism for its laws persecuting gay people, while Qatar drew concerns about its alleged human rights violations, including unsafe working conditions for migrant workers.
It set a precedent. Off-field debates dominated conversations leading up to the events.
But now, once the action starts with soccer stars like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappe, those discussions take a backseat.
“In the end, World Cups tend to be great successes for the regimes,” soccer writer David Conn told the Columbia Journalism Review. “The World Cup in Qatar: all those years of critiquing and investigations was worth it for four weeks of the greatest game on earth.”
Now the question is whether the U.S.-Iran war leaves a cloud over this year’s tournament.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
Contact the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.