WASHINGTON — The cleats were packed. The training camp in Antalya was winding down. What Iran’s footballers did not have, until Friday, was permission to set foot in the country hosting the World Cup they had qualified to play.
Members of Iran’s national squad have been granted US entry visas, two American officials confirmed, clearing a path for the team to travel from Turkey to their base in Tijuana, Mexico, and eventually cross into California for their first two group-stage matches. The announcement came 10 days before Iran’s Group G opener against New Zealand at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on June 15 — enough time to travel, but barely enough to settle.
Tom Barrack, the US Ambassador to Turkey, made the news public in a post on social media Friday morning. The US Embassy in Ankara, he wrote, had processed the visas for Iran’s national football team on their road to the tournament. “Sports transcends borders,” Barrack added, “and we look forward to welcoming competitors and fans from around the world.”
The relief was real, but the qualifier matters. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told lawmakers earlier in the week that his department had “no problem” issuing visas to Iran’s players — while drawing a clear line around who else would be permitted. The administration would not allow individuals tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to enter the country embedded in the delegation, Rubio said. “What we’re not going to allow is for them to embed in their delegation a bunch of people that we know have nothing to do with athletics and have ties to the IRGC,” he told the Senate panel.
That carve-out has already had consequences. Mehdi Taj, president of Iran’s football federation, was denied entry for the World Cup draw in Washington last December. Taj, a former commander in the Revolutionary Guards, remains one of the more senior officials in Asian football governance — a vice president of the Asian Football Confederation and a member of two FIFA committees. He is not expected to attend the tournament itself.
Iran’s semi-official ESPN reported that a US official confirmed visas had been issued for players, coaches, trainers and some support staff, while the official could not say if any Iranian applicants had been denied. Fars news agency reported on Friday that some members of the team’s technical and administrative staff had still not received visas, with the US Embassy having so far declined to process them. Neither the Iranian football federation nor the State Department offered clarification on how many applicants remained pending.
The situation around Iran’s World Cup participation has been unlike anything the tournament has seen in its 96-year history. This is the first time a host country will receive a nation it is actively fighting. The United States and Israel launched joint strikes against Iran in late February, and while a fragile ceasefire has held through the spring, hostilities have continued at irregular intervals. US forces downed four Iranian drones near the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, hours after the visa announcement, underlining how much remains unresolved between the two governments.
Iran’s federation had earlier moved the team’s base camp from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, at the federation’s request, citing security concerns and a desire to minimize the squad’s exposure inside the United States. Mexico, a co-host of the tournament, had already issued visas to the squad through its embassy in Ankara. The team is scheduled to fly from Turkey to Spain on Saturday before continuing on to Tijuana, where they are expected to arrive Sunday.
Group G presents Iran with a schedule that could, if results align, produce an encounter no one in the US State Department or the Pentagon is eager to discuss publicly: Iran versus the United States in the round of 32, on July 3 in Arlington, Texas, if both teams finish second in their respective groups. No one is planning for that fixture to happen, but no one can rule it out.
Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, had said late Thursday the squad still did not have its visas — only to have the White House confirm they had been issued overnight. The timeline suggests a last-minute resolution that either side could read in its preferred direction. Pasandideh chose to read it as a signal of intent. “Iran’s participation in the World Cup — even on the soil of what is seen as its enemy — shows that Iran seeks peace,” he said, speaking through a Spanish interpreter at the Iranian embassy in Mexico City.
That framing has not been reciprocated in Washington. President Donald Trump had said in March that he did not think Iran’s participation in the tournament was “appropriate,” raising concerns about players’ safety. The Iranian team replied that no one had asked for his opinion. What neither side has acknowledged directly is that the visa process itself — slow, conditional, mediated through the US Embassy in Ankara rather than any direct diplomatic channel — functioned, intentionally or not, as a form of leverage during a period when peace negotiations between the two countries remain inconclusive.
Iran face New Zealand on June 15, Belgium on June 21, and Egypt in Seattle on June 26. The team that spent weeks threatening to withdraw from the tournament through a 10-point ultimatum to FIFA will now appear, at least on the pitch, to be playing football. Whether what surrounds that football constitutes normalcy is a question the players themselves cannot answer.
What the State Department has not said — and what Iran has not pressed publicly — is whether the same visa framework will apply to Iranian supporters attempting to travel to California for the matches. That question, like much else around this tournament, remains open.
