Soccer officials from Iran are intent on meeting with FIFA’s leadership about its upcoming World Cup matches in the United States.
Mehdi Taj, president of Iran’s soccer administration, informed Iranian media Friday that the country’s soccer leadership has issues it wants to discuss with the international governing body. Iran was the only FIFA federation among the 211 member countries without representation at this week’s FIFA congress in Vancouver, Canada.
That meeting is expected to happen before May 20 at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, the Associated Press reported.
Taj gave further insight to an incident this week when he and the other traveling members of the Iran delegation had issues getting into Toronto while on the way to Vancouver for the FIFA congress. Canadian immigration authorities questioned Taj about ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
They were reportedly detained for two hours before being told they could continue on to Vancouver but instead elected to leave the country.
“We all had visas and were even checked in Turkey. They told us they had questions for you and asked if we were members of the IRGC,” Taj said, according to Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim.
“We told them that there are 90 million IRGC members in Iran. They said that we don’t allow people from this organization in. They said that it is the laws of our country.
“After a while, they said you can enter but we decided to return. They didn’t deport us and we decided to return ourselves… I told the Canadians that you kept us at the airport for three hours, you made us wait for nothing.”
There has been much speculation about whether Iran would be able and/or willing to participate in this summer’s World Cup in North America in the aftermath of the US and Israel launching a dual military attack against Iran in February.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino said at Thursday’s annual congress that Iran will be coming to the US and playing as scheduled in the event. This goes against Iran’s request in March for its matches to be moved to Mexico.
Iran, which is in Group G alongside New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt, is scheduled to have its base camp set up in Tucson, Ariz. The team is set to play two group-stage matches in Inglewood, Calif. (June 15 and 21) before closing group play in Seattle on June ?26.