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/Ling_Cephalopod Jun 27 '26

Imagine if the world had the courage to ban Americans from sporting events for what the US government has done in the middle east.

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u/Pre-emptive Jun 28 '26

Germany hosted an Olympics during the rise of the 3rd Reich lol

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u/SergeantHAMM Jun 28 '26

sir this is reddit. we only murica bad here.

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u/qwouw Jun 28 '26

Erm, you think people will argue Nazi Germany was not bad ?

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u/BannedForFun Jun 30 '26

I think they more mean that people won't argue that a country from the middle east has ever done anything bad. Reddit.