The on-off war on Iran that was started by the U.S. and Israel on February 28 continues. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed in June, which purported to cease hostilities, did not hold when there were disagreements on the interpretation of its articles. At the core of the disagreements was Article 5 regarding the monitoring of the traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Republic’s interpretation was that all traffic going through the strait, at least for the first sixty days, had to be coordinated with its forces. On the other hand, the U.S. pressured Oman’s government, which has territorial waters on the southern part of the strait, to agree to use a route closer to Oman with ships moving with their transponders turned off.
One would ask, if the U.S. was not aware of how the Islamic Republic interpreted Article 5, why did the ships taking the southern path turn off their transponders? Unfortunately, after starting a war on Iran twice in the middle of negotiations and then signing an MOU and changing the terms in action later, the small amount of trust that was left between the parties in this conflict has now evaporated.
Being a football (soccer) fan since early childhood, I was hoping that with the 2026 World Cup starting in June and hosted mainly by the U.S. (along with Mexico and Canada), the U.S. would show restraint and fairplay in both restarting the war and in handling the Iranian team and other teams, referees, and fans from other parts of the world. The signing of the MOU right at the start of the World Cup gave me even more hope. The history of FIFA also made me optimistic that the powerful world football association would use its power to make sure there was a level playing field for all participants. Unfortunately, I was proven wrong. Not only did clashes continue during the World Cup tournament, the Iranian team was handled with outright prejudice and discrimination, unprecedented in the history of FIFA.
While this was the first time that a country at war with the World Cup host was participating in the most watched tournament in the history of sports, the U.S. did not allow the Iranian football team to set up camp inside the U.S. After camping in Antalya, Türkiye, for more than a month, the Iranian team was forced to camp in Tijuana, Mexico, close to San Diego and travel to the U.S. for each of their three group games. The U.S. only agreed to issue visas for the Iranian team to arrive one day before each game (with the exception of the game against Egypt in Seattle) and leave right after the game. This is again an outright discrimination since the norm is that the teams arrive two days before the game and leave the day after the game since the players need to physically recover from 90+ minutes of playing. Furthermore, six of the management, logistics, and media staff members of the Iranian team were outright denied any visa, causing coaches to be distracted during World Cup matches while fulfilling the missing personnels’ responsibilities instead of focusing on their own duties.
While there was international outcry—including from non-political experienced sports journalists, many of whom were from Europe and the U.S.—FIFA officials did not remedy the situation. Notably, pressure on the host nation has worked in the past. During the 1966 World Cup in England, when the British government refused to issue visas to the North Korean team, FIFA threatened to move the World Cup to another country, resulting in visas being issued by the host nation. While the blatant discrimination and dehumanization the Iranian team faced during the 2026 World Cup was unprecedented, there were other incidents which marred the event. An award winning Somali FIFA referee was not allowed into the U.S. and there were cases of players from other teams being bodily searched on the tarmac.
What we have observed as a result of this devastating war is that our community everywhere in the world is affected by marginalization and dehumanization by the U.S. and FIFA’s ready appeasement in the face of such actions. The glimmer of hope is that the world community reacted with outrage, reminding us that humanity is alive and supports us in finding the place we deserve alongside all other human communities around the world.
