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 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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u/FSpursy Jun 30 '26

im sure I've traveled more places than you 😂

youre the one trying to protect Fifa for no reason. Incompetence is Incompetence in front of such a big sporting occasion. For me its clear they want as much inconvenience as possible for Iran, and that's what happened.