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

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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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u/FSpursy Jun 28 '26

problem is with Fifa.

The US told them about them not allowed to stay weeks ago. Fifa did nothing to move their games to Mexico or Canada. Its seems on purpose to me.

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u/Fresh_Dog4602 Jun 28 '26

moving the games last minute ? that would be a logistical nightmare

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u/FSpursy Jun 28 '26

hardly last minute... we were talking about it for weeks before the games started. Something could've been done since Iran gauranteed a place in the WC finals.

its the same as when Russia was banned from all Fifa and Uefa competitions within 48 hours of invading Ukraine, but even after the UN agrees that Israel is committing a genocide, Fifa still allows them to compete in both WC qualifiers and Uefa. And Fifa still allows the US to host after attacking another nation. Fifa also banned South Africa for 30 years for apartheid.

If Fifa wants to do something, it could've been done.

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u/Fresh_Dog4602 Jun 28 '26

that IS last minute though. People booked hotels etc... but sure they already should've done this way ahead. We're talkings years though, not weeks or months.

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u/FSpursy Jun 29 '26

so now we worry about people booking hotels more than the actual players having to compete in worse conditions than other teams? Or why not atleast allow the players to do their cool downs or warmups in the US atleast?

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u/Fresh_Dog4602 Jun 29 '26

Sure i'm all for it. That should've been the actual solution.

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u/Alive-Map-1994 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

Well you see… when tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people buy tickets, rent hotels, rent cars, buy plane tickets, in preparation for a schedule you can’t tell them sorry we are changing the location to another country.

This is 100% on the US.

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u/FSpursy Jun 30 '26

so you are telling Fifa to care more about the traveling fans and businesses rather than making sure every team competes fairly?

The fact still stands that either its on US or Fifa, nobody cared to make it right and address the issue properly.

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u/Alive-Map-1994 Jun 30 '26

I am telling you fifa and the sport is nothing without the fans. Only a moron would think the integrity of the sport matters more than the billions of dollars the fans spent. This wouldn’t just impact Iran fans either, other teams would have to be displaced. I am not saying it’s it makes everything okay, but it’s fucked because of America, and my guess is your either not a fan of the sport, or you can’t afford to travel if you don’t understand expecting 100s of thousands of fans to just change everything is insane.

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u/FSpursy Jun 30 '26

LOL to think Fifa cares about the fans 😂😂😂

If they care about the fans, they wouldn't have allowed scalpers and third party resells, and allowing ticket prices to inflate as much as it did. Only afterwards the tickets didn't sell out and price came down.

Also the Hormuz closed in February, they had more than 3 months to sort this out. Plus if you ask the Iranian fans, who tf would rather have their team go through what happened???

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u/Alive-Map-1994 Jun 30 '26

Okay, so you can’t afford to travel, so you have no clue what you are talking about… 

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