I have watched every FIFA soccer World Cup since 1982, when a skinny, curly-haired Diego Armando Maradona made his World Cup debut in Spain. I have lived through the brilliance of Zico, Socrates, and Falcao’s Brazil in 1982, Maradona’s Goal of the Century against England in Mexico in 1986, Romário’s magic in the United States in 1994, Zineddine Zidane’s elegance in France, Andrés Iniesta’s agonizing extra-time winner against the Netherlands in Johannesburg, Lionel Messi finally lifting the trophy in Qatar after Emiliano “Dibu” Martínez’s miraculous save against France, and now Messi—Maradona’s true footballing heir—still carrying Argentina’s hopes. And, if I am honest, mine as well.
For the first time in 44 years, however, I find myself wondering whether I even want to watch with the same passion.
The reason is not the football. It is that one of the World Cup host countries—the United States—and the institutions governing the game, such as FIFA, seem to have forgotten that football exists for the people who love it—not for politicians, billionaires, bureaucrats, or machines.
The treatment of Iran’s national team in the United States illustrates this point. It has been unnecessarily petty, hostile, and contrary to everything the World Cup is supposed to represent.
Uniquely among participants, the Iranian team had been denied permission to stay overnight on American soil before and after the matches. It had to travel on the day of the game, and afterwards return immediately back to its base in Tijuana, Mexico . This denied the Iranians the recovery time, putting them at disadvantage compared with other teams.
The “Team Melli” (as it is known among its supporters)’s coach Amir Galenoi and the captain Mehdi Taremi both voiced complaints about “unfair treatment,” including the logistical and immigration hurdles the team faced, and expressed their disappointment at the perceived failure of FIFA to remedy the situation.
Coupled with referee decisions on the pitch, such as controversially denying Iran the decisive goal against Egypt that would have propelled it to the knock-out stage, Taremi expressed a common sentiment that it appeared like Iran’s presence in the World Cup was unwelcome.
That decisive goal—disallowed for a marginal (and disputed) offside—may or may not have been legally correct. But what fuels the sentiment voiced by Taremi and suspicions of a back-room conspiracy to eliminate Iran from the tournament is precisely the overall discriminatory manner in which the team was arguably treated.
Iran’s players arrived in the United States already carrying the weight of a nation in turmoil—mass protests against the regime at home earlier in the year, the shadow of the illegal U.S.-Israeli war, and the knowledge that their families were watching from a country under siege. It is conceivable that some of the players may have lost family members or friends during the U.S.-Israeli strikes or the preceding regime repression. They did not need more trouble.
They got it anyway.
Parts of the Iranian diaspora greeted them not as footballers but as representatives of the Islamic Republic—calling them “the IRGC team,” as if wearing the national jersey made them complicit in state violence. But these are footballers, not soldiers.
Whatever one thinks of the Islamic Republic—and I have no illusions about its authoritarianism and violence —the players are not responsible for the policies of their government. As Washington and Tehran signed, with the Qatari and Pakistani mediation, a memorandum of understanding ending the war, the United States could at least have made the modest gesture of allowing them to remain in the country between matches. Instead, football became another stage for geopolitical pettiness.
That, however, didn’t seem to turn the Iranian team into bitterness: instead, in both Los-Angeles and Seattle, the players left in the dressing rooms hand-written notes in English thanking both cities for their hospitality and their fans for support.
I spoke with an American journalist who has been following this World Cup—not as an assignment, but as a fan. She told me the notes stood out against the backdrop of visa hurdles and logistical battles as an act of grace from men who had been shown none. And for some Americans, according to her, it prompted a quiet reassessment of the way they looked at the Iranian people.
There was another dimension to this story, one that the Trump administration almost certainly did not care to anticipate. By forcing Iran’s team to base itself in Tijuana, the United States inadvertently created something unexpected: a bond between Iran and Mexico.
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum—whose country is a co-host of this World Cup— extended an invitation for the Iranian team to stay in her country. It was a gesture of solidarity that stood in quiet contrast to the hostility they faced across the border.
On Mexican social media, support for Iran was palpable. “Tijuana is the birthplace of the brotherhood and friendship between our two nations,” one user wrote . Mexicans, who have their own long and complicated history with their northern neighbor, including border walls , seemed to recognize something familiar in Iran’s predicament. The empathy was natural—almost instinctive.
In its own clumsy, heavy-handed way, the Trump administration appears to have done something it never intended: it fueled a fresh current of Global South solidarity. It turned a football tournament into a reminder that when one nation is humiliated, others notice.
FIFA said virtually nothing about the Iranians’ complaints. And that silence is telling.
FIFA’s chief Gianni Infantino has increasingly transformed the body from the guardian of football into an institution more comfortable flattering power than defending principle. His repeated public praise of Donald Trump, including awarding him the FIFA Peace Prize (a few months before he started bombing Iran) has been embarrassing enough. One can already imagine the closing ceremony: more declarations about “the greatest World Cup ever,” more praise for the host, more political spectacle—while the universal values FIFA so often invokes quietly disappear.
A game that once transcended borders is increasingly trapped by power, politics, and obscene amounts of money and technology—including the Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR), which now reviews almost every goal as if football were a laboratory experiment rather than a human drama.
Maradona once said, la pelota no se mancha —the ball does not stain. He was right. The stain is not on the ball. It is on the institutions that govern football, on those who mistake proximity to power for leadership.
Football never needed political power. It needed courage. It needed chaos. It still relies on children believing that one impossible run, one outrageous goal, one miraculous save can change everything.
That is the game I fell in love with in 1982. That is the game the world deserves. And that is the game FIFA is slowly allowing to disappear—while young men who only wanted to play, who left thank-you notes in dressing rooms they were never made to feel welcome in, watched it all unfold from a border they were permitted to cross only to perform, and never to belong.
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