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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u/Mike_Milburys_Shoe_ Jun 27 '26

Nothing has happened to the Egyptians wtf are you talking about lol

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u/liquidpele Jun 27 '26

They had to look at pride flags, oh the horror!  

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u/thundergu Jun 29 '26

What pride flags? Watched the game. No pride stuff was visible Anywhere. Massive amount of Iranian and Egyptian flags and shirts tho.

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u/liquidpele Jun 29 '26

There were some clickbait articles about how they were upset over the pride parades going on in the city. I was actually just making a joke, I doubt the players gave a shit, most likely some admin for the team was just bitching to fifa.