Iran is moving its World Cup training base to Mexico after FIFA (International Football Federation) approved a request to move from Tucson, Arizona, the president of the Iranian football federation said this Saturday (23).
The Iranian team will be based in Tijuana, on the border between Mexico and the United States, federation president Mehdi Taj said in a video released by the Fars news agency.
“Fortunately, thanks to the meetings we had with FIFA officials, our request to change country, from the United States to Mexico, due to problems encountered in obtaining visas, was accepted by FIFA,” said Taj.
“So we’ll be based in Tijuana, near the Pacific Ocean. It’s a city that’s between Mexico and the United States, but it’s located in Mexico. We’ve actually already completed the team structure there.”
Taj said the move will help avoid visa-related complications and that the delegation will be able to use Iran Air flights to travel directly to Mexico.
Iran’s participation in the World Cup has been in doubt for months because the tournament is being co-hosted by the United States, which, along with Israel, began bombing Iran on February 28, triggering a wider war in the Middle East.
Iran is in Group G and debuts against New Zealand in Los Angeles, on June 15th.
They will then face Belgium in the same city and end their participation in the group stage against Egypt in Seattle.
Taj said Tijuana was closer to the cities where Iran will play than the training site in Arizona.
“The distance for us in the two games we have in Los Angeles will be 55 minutes by flight. Which is much less compared to Tucson,” said the president of the federation.
The Iranian team is currently at a training center in Antalya, in southern Turkey, and some players went to the US embassy in Ankara on Thursday (21) to apply for visas for the World Cup.
Contacted by AFP, the director of the Kino Sports Complex in Arizona, where Iran would be staying, said she could not confirm the change and referred all questions to the World Cup organizers.
