Players for Iran arrive for the World Cup soccer tournament in Tijuana, Mexico, Sunday, June 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
PUBLISHED: June 19, 2026 at 5:52 PM EDT | UPDATED: June 19, 2026 at 5:59 PM EDT
Iran’s World Cup team says it’s unfairly being made to travel to matches the day before games and return immediately after, but that schedule itself isn’t uncommon among teams.
So how does it work, with 48 teams criss-crossing 16 cities across three countries? Iran has been forced to comply with what White House FIFA task force head Andrew Giuliani said were previously mandated rules stemming from the war, but those restrictions also align with FIFA guidelines for general team travel.
Team Melli made the 127-mile charter flight from Tijuana International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport the day before its opening 2-2 draw against New Zealand on Monday, a typically short trip that team captain Mehdi Taremi said instead took five hours, including security and immigration checks.
Iran returned to Mexico right after the match, which ended about 8 p.m. Pacific. The team had hoped to stave off travel for a day after the game.
The team’s request to travel to LA two days before Sunday’s match against Belgium was also denied, the federation said late Thursday, adding that it will lodge a complaint with FIFA. In a statement, the federation noted Sunday’s earlier kickoff — noon Pacific — and said it believes “such restrictions are inconsistent with the principle of providing equal conditions for all participating teams and may negatively affect teams’ preparation processes.”
“We are the only team that are participating in the World Cup that we are at the host cities just 24 hours and it is not fair,” Iran soccer secretary-general Hedayat Mombeini said through a translator Friday. “All these limitations on us, it has negative effects on our physical and mental things on our players.”
Iran’s Ramin Rezaeian (23) celebrates with his teammates after scoring a goal during the World Cup Group G soccer match between Iran and New Zealand in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Iran’s Alireza Jahanbakhsh smiles as he arrives with his teammates for the World Cup soccer tournament in Tijuana, Mexico, Sunday, June 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Iran’s Ehsan Hajisafi arrives with his teammates for the World Cup soccer tournament in Tijuana, Mexico, Sunday, June 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Players for Iran arrive for the World Cup soccer tournament in Tijuana, Mexico, Sunday, June 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
But the Iran team’s travel schedule itself is not unusual for short distances in this tournament. And FIFA’s 2026 World Cup regulations state in Article 18.3 that “each team shall travel from its team base camp to the match venue one day before matchday (MD‑1) and in exceptional cases on MD‑2, and shall return to their team base camp after the match (on MD/MD+1).”
The restrictions on the Iran team have not been lifted despite an interim agreement to end the war. Some team officials and support staff have been unable to secure visas to the U.S., and player Mehdi Torabi had to visit the U.S. consulate in Tijuana to get a new visa after the first match.
Many teams have been arriving in host cities the day before their matches. For Friday’s group-stage match against Australia, the U.S. made the roughly 980-mile flight from their base in Orange County, California, to Seattle on Thursday. The team intended to return to its hotel in Laguna Niguel after the match.
Some CONCACAF teams preferred to arrive on the day before games for World Cup qualifiers at Mexico City, where sports performance experts advise players won’t have time to acclimatize to the altitude so should get there as close to kickoff as possible.
Bosnia-Herzegovina has the longest group stage travel, at 5,878 miles in total. The Dragons had a roughly 1,660-mile flight each way from Salt Lake City to Toronto, 590 miles to Los Angeles and 690 miles to Seattle.
Bosnia’s travel is far shorter than the 9,000-mile trek for the U.S. at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the longest among the 32 nations. The Americans went from their base camp in Sao Paulo to Natal, a distance of 1,436 miles, three days before their opener against Ghana. They made the 1,832-mile trip to Manaus two days before of their game against Portugal and the 1,321-mile journey to Recife two days in front of their match against Germany.
Four years ago in Qatar, all stadiums were within 31 miles of downtown Qatar, enabling for teams to stay in one hotel throughout the tournament.
AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/fifa-world-cup
