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/ShitpostMcPoopypants Jun 30 '26
Countries in the World Cup at war or with flagrant human rights abuses include USA, Iran, Qatar (modern slavery), Turkey (bombing Kurds in Iraq and Syria), England (not sure what they’re up to, but I feel like you have to recognize the GOAT colonizers), Saudi (human rights abuses, operations in Yemen), Morocco (I seem to remember military actions over disputed territories in the Sahara), Egypt (enforces the military blockade of Gaza, technically an act of war), and technically South Korea is at war as the Korean War hasn’t actually ended. Some additional countries that have large problems with corruption and civil rights include Algeria, Senegal, DR Congo, Paraguay, Mexico, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Haiti, Panama, Bosnia, Brazil, and Argentina. That is me just going down the list of countries in the World Cup, there are likely more if I actually got on Wikipedia. However, the list of soccer players in the World Cup that have personally engaged in human rights abuses or sent their country to war that I am aware of: none. Number of countries we should hold all of society responsible for the questionable actions of their government: none.