Iran criticise travel restrictions, asking FIFA to get them more time in US
June 19 – Iran are preparing to lodge an official complaint with FIFA over what they describe as discriminatory travel restrictions at the World Cup, escalating a row that is threatening to overshadow the country’s participation in the tournament.
The Football Federation of Iran (FFIRI) confirmed it will formally raise its concerns with world football’s governing body after being forced to operate under visa conditions that require the team to enter the United States just one day before matches and leave immediately afterwards.
The Iran camp is based in Tijuana, Mexico, despite all three of their group-stage matches being played in the United States.
Earlier this week, Iran head coach Amir Ghalenoei gave a blunt assessment of the situation after his side’s 2-2 draw with New Zealand in Los Angeles, describing his team as the “most oppressed” at the tournament.
“After the game they said to us ‘you have to leave immediately’,” Ghalenoei said.
“We’ve been asked to get on a plane and return to our camp in Tijuana and we are really troubled by that.
“They are forcing us to go back early. They are making the situation more and more difficult, more hurdles, but we’re not going to let that stop us from doing our best.”
The latest dispute comes with a backdrop of months of uncertainty surrounding Iran’s participation in the World Cup – fuelled by the war with World Cup hosts USA and their security concerns.
While Iran’s players were admitted into the US for matches, several members of the country’s backroom staff were denied entry visas before the tournament. The federation also complained that its ticket allocation was revoked on the eve of the competition.
In a statement, the FFIRI argued that the travel arrangements undermine the principle of competitive fairness.
“The travel restrictions imposed on the Iranian national team are inconsistent with the principle of providing equal conditions for all participating teams and may negatively affect teams’ preparation processes,” the federation said.
“Consequently, the federation will formally express its dissatisfaction and lodge an official complaint with FIFA through the appropriate channels.”
Iran had originally requested permission to arrive in host cities two days before matches and leave the day after, arguing that players required additional time to recover, train and acclimatise. The federation says those requests have been rejected twice, first before the New Zealand match and again ahead of Sunday’s meeting with Belgium in Los Angeles.
“The same situation has now been repeated ahead of Iran’s second match against Belgium,” the FFIRI said.
“Given that the game will be played at 12:00pm local time in Los Angeles, the Football Federation of Iran requested that the team be allowed to travel to Los Angeles two days before the match.
“The aim was to provide sufficient time for players to adapt to the match conditions, complete their final training session, and finalise preparations.
“Despite the technical reasons presented by the federation, the request was once again denied.”
The United States government has maintained that Iran agreed to the conditions before the tournament. Responding to earlier criticism, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said: “The Iranian national football team agreed to these terms.”
Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House FIFA Task Force, also defended the arrangement, saying Iran would be allowed into the country on the day before matches and required to leave immediately once games had concluded.
The controversy places FIFA in an uncomfortable position at a tournament it has repeatedly promoted as a celebration of unity and inclusion. After the New Zealand match, FIFA president Gianni Infantino visited the Iran locker room. “I know what you go through, I understand,” Infantino told the players. “But you are stronger than everything, and you send a strong message to the entire world.” The Iranians believe FIFA can do more and that Infantino promised to help them.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at [email protected]
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
