The Treatment of Iran’s World Cup Team Exposed the West's and FIFA's Double Standards
Iran’s football captain was asked about LGBT rights. So, why then wasn’t the U.S. team captain asked about the U.S. bombing of the girls' school in Minab?
When the Iranian football team left Los Angeles after their second match at the 2026 World Cup, they left behind a handwritten note in their locker room thanking the city for “its hospitality.” Iranian politeness is famous, but “hospitality” is not the word that comes to mind when I think of how the Iranian national team has been treated by FIFA and the United States, one of the World Cup’s 2026 host countries. Not only did President Donald Trump welcome the team back in March by saying that he did not think the team’s participation in the tournament was “appropriate,” citing possible dangers to their “lives and safety,” but his administration also denied as many visas as possible, required the team to leave the U.S. immediately after every match, and forced them to be based across the border in Mexico, initially allowing entry to the great United States only within 24 hours before a match. When the Iranian national anthem played, as is customary, before their two games in a Los Angeles Stadium, parts of the crowd booed.
At every press conference, journalists who have spent careers lobbing softballs at sportsmen made sure to quiz Iranian captain Mehdi Taremi as obnoxiously as possible, asking him after the team’s 1-1 draw against Egypt whether he supports LGBT people. “We respect all of the LGBT people,” Taremi answered, before wondering if the journalist had any questions about the actual game of football that had been played. One can only assume that Kylian Mbappé, the French captain, was quizzed on Emmanuel Macron’s stalling of the French economy, the Austrian captain questioned about his country’s love of far-right politicians, and Argentina’s team captain made to answer about why Javier Milei is such a weirdo. They weren’t. Was the U.S. captain asked about his country’s funding of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, or its bombing of a girls’ school that killed at least 100 children in Minab on the first day of Trump’s war on Iran? No? What a surprise.
I am old enough to remember when American celebrities and British pundits made a hue and cry about Qatar hosting a World Cup.