Source: AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIranian officials had floated the idea of shifting their group games from the United States to Mexico, but that proposal had already been nixed by Infantino. <\/p>\n
In a further twist last week, Italy-born US special envoy Paolo Zampolli was reported to have floated the idea of Italy taking Iran\u2019s World Cup place. <\/p>\n
The US government later distanced themselves from that proposal, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying Iran\u2019s footballers would be welcome. <\/p>\n
But the tension surrounding Iran\u2019s World Cup participation rumbled into the build-up to Thursday\u2019s summit. <\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s delegation was the only absentee from the 211-member congress as Thursday\u2019s meeting got under way after a clash with Canadian border officials earlier this week. <\/p>\n
Officials from the Iranian football federation (FFIRI) abruptly left Canada after landing in Toronto, abandoning their onward trip to Vancouver. <\/p>\n
Iranian media said FFIRI president Mehdi Taj – a former member of Tehran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – and two colleagues flew home after being \u201cinsulted\u201d by Canadian immigration officers. <\/p>\n
Canada, which designated the IRGC a terrorist organisation in 2024, said Wednesday that individuals linked to the force were \u201cinadmissible\u201d.<\/p>\n
Iran, who are due to be based in Tucson, Arizona, during the World Cup, face New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt in Group G. <\/p>\n
The Iranians open their World Cup campaign against New Zealand in Los Angeles on June 15.<\/p>\n<\/amp-img>FIFA President Gianni Infantino. Ethan Cairns\/The Canadian Press via AP<\/span>Source: AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFIFA supremo Infantino went into Thursday\u2019s summit with his organisation under fire over skyrocketing ticket costs for the World Cup, which one supporters group has branded a \u201cmonumental betrayal\u201d of fans. <\/p>\n
Infantino brushed off those criticisms in his address, insisting that all revenues from the World Cup – estimated to be more than US$11 billion – would be pumped back into football development. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are expensive tickets, yes, (but) there are also affordable tickets,\u201d Infantino said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what is important is that all the revenues that we generate from the world go back to the entire world and finance football in all of your countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Infantino\u2019s close ties to US President Trump have also come under scrutiny. Advocacy group Fairsquare filed a formal complaint in December arguing that Infantino had breached FIFA rules concerning political neutrality by awarding Trump the inaugural \u201cFIFA Peace Prize\u201d during last year\u2019s World Cup draw. <\/p>\n
However Infantino received a huge boost to his hopes of securing re-election as the head of world football on Thursday after receiving pledges of support from the African and Asian regional confederations. <\/p>\n
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have both said they will back Infantino if, as expected, he stands for a fourth term in 2027. <\/p>\n
The African and Asian confederations account for 101 votes in FIFA\u2019s presidential election out of a total of 211.<\/p>\n
Infantino has already secured support for re-election from South American football\u2019s ruling body CONMEBOL, which is worth a further 10 votes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIFA President Gianni Infantino reiterated that Iran will play their World Cup games in the United States as scheduled as football\u2019s power-brokers met in Vancouver on Thursday. Iran\u2019s participation at this year\u2019s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States has been shrouded in uncertainty since the eruption of war in the Middle East […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6807],"tags":[156],"class_list":{"0":"post-241278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leagues-cups","8":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}