Mexico to host Iran's World Cup team after US refusal, president says

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Monday her government agreed to allow the Iranian national football team to stay in Mexico during the World Cup, adding that the United States did not want to host the team.

Sheinbaum said football’s governing body Fifa approached her government after the US said it did not want Iran’s squad to stay in the country throughout the tournament, despite Iran playing all three of its group matches there.

“We have no reason to deny them the possibility of staying in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said during her daily press conference.

The US and Israel first launched strikes on Iran on 28 February. The bombing killed thousands of people in Iran before a tenuous ceasefire was agreed in early April amid protracted peace talks on Iran’s closure of the vital straits of Hormuz waterway and the fate of its nuclear ambitions.

The White House and the state department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mehdi Taj, head of Iran’s football federation, said on Saturday the team’s base would be moved from Arizona to the Mexican border city of Tijuana during the tournament.

Taj added that the move would help avoid visa-related complications and that the squad would be able to travel directly to Mexico aboard Iran Air flights. The Iranian team’s participation in the 11 June- 19 July tournament had been in question since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February.

Iran will play its first two Group G matches in Los Angeles against New Zealand on 15 June and Belgium on 21 June, before facing Egypt in Seattle on 26 June.