Enormous stress for the teamWorld Cup hammer: Iran stars have to leave the USA immediately on match days

The Iranian national soccer team is apparently only allowed to stay in the USA during the World Cup on match days and has to be prepared for enormous travel demands. According to the Iranian ambassador to Mexico, the delegation was informed that they had to enter and leave the US territory for their games on the same day.

“We can enter in the morning and have to leave the same day,” Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, said on Saturday. All three of Iran's preliminary round games take place in the USA, and the venue is near the border in Tijuana/Mexico.

The Iranian players had previously been granted their visas for the USA. As Iranian state television reported on Saturday, 15 people from the delegation were refused visas. There was no more detailed information about the negative cases or the identities of the delegation members affected.

The Iranian embassy in Turkey expressed sharp criticism and complained about “arbitrary and discriminatory treatment of the team”. This has been “raised to the highest level,” it said in a statement. US Ambassador Tom Barrack praised the US Embassy in Ankara effusively for its handling of the matter.

Iran is scheduled to play its games against New Zealand (June 15) and Belgium (June 21) in Los Angeles, almost 230 kilometers from Tijuana. The third group game takes place in Seattle, more than 2000 kilometers away, against Egypt (June 27th). The Iranian entourage left for Spain on Saturday in order to travel from there to their headquarters in Mexico. The team originally planned their camp in Tucson, Arizona, but this was then moved.

The two countries have been at war since the US and Israel began bombing Iran in late February.

Sources used: tno/sid