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By Lawrence Agbo
Iran has threatened to seek FIFA’s intervention after claiming that tournament organisers rejected its request to travel early to Los Angeles for its next World Cup match against Belgium.
According to the Iranian Football Federation, the team had planned to leave its base camp in Tijuana, Mexico, two days before the Group G encounter scheduled for Sunday in Los Angeles. However, federation officials said the request was denied despite being submitted with technical justifications.
“Despite having submitted its preparation schedule for the tournament well in advance, Iran’s national football team has once again encountered restrictions imposed by the organisers, affecting the implementation of its technical staff’s plans,” the spokesman said.
A spokesman for the federation said Iran had provided its tournament preparation schedule well in advance but had continued to face restrictions that disrupted the plans of the coaching crew.
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The federation argued that an earlier arrival in Los Angeles was necessary to allow players enough time to adjust to local conditions, complete their final training session and fine-tune preparations ahead of the noon kick-off.
Iranian officials expressed disappointment over the decision, insisting that the request was based solely on sporting considerations. They described the rejection as the second time organisers had turned down a travel-related request from the team during the tournament.
“Given that the game will be played at 12:00 pm local time in Los Angeles, the Football Federation of Iran requested that the team be allowed to travel to Los Angeles two days before the match,” the spokesman said.
“The aim was to provide sufficient time for players to adapt to the match conditions, complete their final training session, and finalize preparations.
“Despite the technical reasons presented by the federation, the request was once again denied.”
The federation said it would lodge a formal complaint with FIFA, claiming the restrictions were affecting the national team’s preparations for one of its most important matches of the competition.
