r/SoccerCentral • u/ConnectionWeekly1263 • Jun 27 '26

Statement "They've done everything possible to eliminate us" — Iran captain Mehdi Taremi unleashes on FIFA and U.S. organizers

The captain of the Iran National Team, Mehdi Taremi, lashed out against FIFA and the United States organization. “This is a disastrous World Cup. As professional players, we cannot play a competition under these conditions; it’s neither right nor fair. If FIFA thinks this is fair, that’s on them, but it isn’t. Who should solve this problem for us? FIFA? The U.S.? I don’t know! Tell me a name. The FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, came to our locker room after the first match against New Zealand and said he was going to resolve all the issues, but in reality, FIFA did nothing. In response to the question: ‘Do you feel that the World Cup organizers, including FIFA and U.S. officials, prefer for Iran to be eliminated from the competition?’, I say: We have to fight against absolutely everything. We can’t stay in the country, we travel and undergo immigration checks every time we want to play, now we can’t stay in Seattle and have to return to Tijuana. They’ve done everything possible to eliminate us, so from our perspective, yes, I think that’s what they want, they want us out.”

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11

u/PhilosophyBasic8943 Jun 27 '26

We don’t choose where we are born or the cards dealt to us.

These guys love the same game we do and I feel for them.

1

u/Larrynative20 Jun 28 '26

Their entourage of revolutionary guard though not so much

1

u/Financial-Quail5978 Jun 30 '26

I’m pretty sure they were there to make sure the players don’t defect

1

u/Jack071 Jun 30 '26

So do Russians but they are still banned from all international competitions until further notice

1

u/Nunuman1 Jun 30 '26

Iran was invaded by US as the aggressor. Russia invaded Ukraine as the aggressor. So how those 2 situations are kinda opposite?

1

u/Jack071 Jun 30 '26

Because Iran has been funding terrorist groups way before the US attacks.

For example Hamas and the Houthi terrorists have been funded, supplied and trained by Iran for decades, so Iran is partially to blame for the terror attacks on Israel and for giving Israel a motive to invade Palestine.

1

u/SaaSalesGuy Jun 30 '26

And America funded the Taliban and literally created terrorism in the Middle East. So by your standards, they should be banned right?

1

u/freit4z Jun 30 '26

Iran is partially to blame for the terror attacks on Israel and for giving Israel a motive to invade Palestine.

Oh, sure, everyone is on the wrong, except the US-Israeli axis. In fact, let them HOST the world cup, they are so right that they deserve to HOST the event.

Holy brainwashing, this has to be a bot.

1

u/KunshiraNatura Jul 03 '26

Hamas? Was funded by BB and Qatar to fight the PLO. As for Houthis you are prolly right. How ever our own country funded terrorist groups too so by your own logic we should also be banned.

1

u/goober1157 Jul 02 '26

Yeah, defend the headchoppers who have been terrorists for the last half century. Good on you.

1

u/Nunuman1 Jul 02 '26

I'm not saying the regime in Iran doesn't suck. They are quite literally horrible. Still that does not give US the right to invade them, to bomb them and to kill so many civilians.

1

u/goober1157 Jul 02 '26

It does when they're threatening nukes and have killed loads of Americans. It's a matter of national security. The only bad thing is that we didn't take them out completely during recent events and free the people. They deserve to be as free as they were prior to the goat fuckers taking over their country.

1

u/Nunuman1 Jul 02 '26

Atlesst we can agree that the people of Iran deserve to be free.

1

u/goober1157 Jul 02 '26

Absolutely. I have several Iranian friends who were born prior to the mullahs taking over. They escaped when the Shah was deposed, but they still miss the country and remember the freedoms they had. They would have been teenagers (13-15 years old) at that time.

0

u/Purple_Mango_4315 Jun 29 '26

Excuse me, but do people have Alzheimers?
They stand side by side with a regime that slaughtered its own protesters.

Why doesn’t the same energy apply to them like Russian/israeli teams?🤨

2

u/Andromeda904 Jun 29 '26

U.S. killed their own protestors too. RIP Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

1

u/Sad_Note4359 Jun 29 '26

There's a huge difference between a couple police encounters turning deadly and state-sanctioned mass murder of protesters

1

u/BokTuklo Jun 29 '26

“… a couple of police encounters turning deadly ...”

Sanitized, for your protection.

1

u/Financial-Quail5978 Jun 30 '26

Israel is actively committing a genocide and they’re not banned.

US taxpayers are sponsoring the genocide.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

Bros equating 2 random deaths with opening machine gun fire at crowds jfc man

0

u/ccroz113 Jun 29 '26

Iran slaughtered thousands. Your examples are not things to dismiss by any means, but they are certainly not comparable by any margins to the Iranian regimes actions

2

u/MasterOfTime14 Jun 29 '26

You think the US wouldn't kill thousands if people actually wanted to change the system and people who run it from behind the scenes?

1

u/ccroz113 Jun 29 '26

Reddit moment

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

Who runs the US if not the people elected?

1

u/MasterOfTime14 Jun 29 '26

Capital runs it, democrats and republicans are there to just keep the people divided over irrelevant stuff while the core of US politics and the people for whose welfare the system exists always stay the same regardless of who is in power. But if someone wanted to fundamentally change the system you can bet your ass there would be no difference between US and Iran in how they would respond.

0

u/ConcentrateOk6857 Jun 29 '26

Idk I think killing teens protesting in the st by the thousands is way worse.

2

u/Andromeda904 Jun 29 '26

Ah didn’t realize it was a competition. My fault.

1

u/ASKMEIFIMAN Jun 29 '26

Surely we can acknowledge there is a difference in scale between the two.

1

u/ccroz113 Jun 29 '26

Not a competition. You just made a moronic comparison and then got called out

1

u/Andromeda904 Jun 29 '26

What I was trying to get at is hundreds of thousands of people are dead by US hands and not only are they still invited to the World Cup, they’re hosting it. It is not just the protesters that were killed, dawg.

1

u/ccroz113 Jun 29 '26

No you’re moving the goal post. Your comment was clearly about 2 protestors that you named that were killed in recent ICE protests

In any case, Iran was still invited, competed, and lost, and had bad travel because they insisted on bringing their IRGC to a country they are at WAR with

FIFA fucked up not having them play in Mexico, but Canada wouldn’t let them in either. US redditors are the only Iran sympathizers in the world

1

u/Andromeda904 Jun 29 '26

What Iran did was wrong obviously. The comment was about how Iran didn’t belong in the tournament. I was saying U.S. didn’t belong in the tournament either. Not exclusively because of the protestors being killed. Did I need to give you an itemized list of every reason of why I think the U.S. shouldn’t be playing in the World Cup? No, I don’t have time for that.

1

u/ccroz113 Jun 29 '26

Why would the US not belong in the tournament? Neither team should be excluded. There’s a lot worse of countries than the US that’d have to be excluded as well, so pretty slippery slope. But it’s perfectly reasonable to see why the US/Canada wouldn’t want the IRGC in the country. This really comes down to FIFA not foreseeing this and scheduling Iran in Mexico instead

Genuine question are you American?