The Iranian national team will move its World Cup base camp to Mexico, according to a statement from Iran’s soccer federation president, Medhi Taj. The shift in location comes amid the ongoing war with the U.S. and related security concerns.
Iran was slated to train at the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, Ariz., a location they decided on in mid-February before the regional conflict began; however, the country will now train out of Tijuana, a Mexican border city that is less than an hour flight to Los Angeles, where the Iranian national team will play its first Group G matches against New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21.
Tijuana is of similar distance to Seattle as Tucson would have been, with Seattle Stadium the final site of group play for Iran, facing off against Egypt on June 26.
“All team base camps for the countries participating in the World Cup must be approved by FIFA," Taj said.
“Fortunately, following the requests we submitted and the meetings we held with FIFA and World Cup officials in Istanbul, as well as the webinar meeting we had on Friday in Tehran with the respected FIFA secretary general [Mattias Grafström], our request to change the team’s base from the United States to Mexico was approved,” he added, although FIFA has yet to confirm the move publicly.
“We will be based in the Tijuana camp, which is near the Pacific Ocean and on the border between Mexico and the United States, but within Mexican territory. The contract will be finalized, and there are no issues, as it has already been approved by FIFA.”
Looking Back at Iran–U.S. World Cup Tensions
The question and capacity of Iran’s participation in the World Cup has loomed since late February, when World Cup co-host U.S. first launched their joint military offensive operation on the Middle Eastern nation, killing Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and commencing a now-escalated conflict across the Middle East.
Directly after the initial airstrikes, Iran put their World Cup participation in question. “What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope,” Taj told the Iranian sports outlet Varzesh3.
Iran was then the only country not present the following week for FIFA’s three-day event in Atlanta to review the logistics of the tournament, an absence which saw U.S. President Donald Trump fuel the fire, stating: “I really don’t care [if Iran participates]. I think Iran is a very badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes.”
Iran then definitively ruled out participation in the 2026 World Cup in mid-March. “Considering that this corrupt regime has assassinated our leader, under no circumstances can we participate in the World Cup,” Iran’s minister of sport Ahmad Donyamali said on state TV.
The Middle Eastern nation has since back-tracked on that statement and is set to compete at the 2026 edition. Nevertheless, Iran did try to to move its World Cup matches to Mexico after Trump’s threatening assertion that although Iran “is welcome to the World Cup, [he] doesn’t really believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety.”
Iran’s request to move its games to Mexico was a logistical undertaking that FIFA President Gianni Infantino outright denied; however, it seems the country and global organization reached some sort of compromise by having the Mexican training base, enabling Iran to fly to and from the U.S. only for matches.
The nation is now in the process of sorting out visas, which Taj says will “no longer be a concern and will largely be resolved, since the Iranian team will enter through Mexico.” Iran had demanded a guarantee that all players, staff and officials will receive a visa, even those with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), such as Taj, who among many others had been denied entry to the U.S. for the World Cup draw back in December.
