{"id":55014,"date":"2026-06-16T20:02:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=55014"},"modified":"2026-06-16T20:02:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:02:31","slug":"iran-will-have-to-leave-us-hours-after-wc-matches-torabi-visa-issue-resolved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2026\/06\/16\/iran-will-have-to-leave-us-hours-after-wc-matches-torabi-visa-issue-resolved\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran will have to leave US hours after WC matches, Torabi visa issue resolved"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al Jazeera – LOS ANGELES, Mehdi Torabi issued a new visa after previous one expired when team returned to Mexico following the New Zealand game.<\/strong><\/p>\n

United States officials have confirmed that Iran\u2019s team will have to leave the country within hours of the full-time whistle at their World Cup group games in Los Angeles and Seattle.<\/p>\n

The response from the World Cup 2026 cohost nation came on Tuesday following criticism of its handling of the Iranian team\u2019s visa and stay in the US after their first game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were clear this was the process,\u201d Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA Task Force, told The Associated Press news agency.<\/p>\n

Team Melli drew with New Zealand in a politically charged Group G game in Los Angeles on Monday following months of uncertainty over the team\u2019s participation in the World Cup amid the US-Israel war on Iran.<\/p>\n

The Iranian delegation left the US hours after the match ended at about 8pm local time (03:00 GMT) and returned to their base camp in Mexico, prompting criticism of the US handling of their visas as the team did not get a day to recover at their hotel.<\/p>\n

Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei said after the match that his team had been ordered to leave the US and return to Mexico only a few hours later. Ghalenoei said the team had expected to spend the night in California to maximise the normal recovery process after their opening game.<\/p>\n

The US faced further pushback as Iran winger Mehdi Torabi\u2019s entry visa expired after the first game. Team officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon that they had secured him a new, multiple-entry visa allowing him to travel into the US for future matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis issue has been resolved,\u201d the US Department of State said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we became aware of the issue, we worked to ensure that the player can participate in every game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giuliani said during an interview broadcast Monday night on CBS News that some of the Iranian team\u2019s support staff and team officials were denied entry into the US, but all the players and coaches had received visas.<\/p>\n

He also outlined the conditions by which the Iranian team would be able to come into the US for their games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team will be allowed to come in, match day minus one, so the day before the match. They\u2019ll be asked to leave the day that the match wraps up, so the evening of the match. And they\u2019ll be able to do that again in Los Angeles. They\u2019ll be able to do it again in Seattle,\u201d Giuliani said.<\/p>\n

When asked about why some support staff and team officials had been denied entry, Giuliani wouldn\u2019t go into details but referred to previous comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio about denying entry to people with direct ties to Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).<\/p>\n

\u201cSecretary Rubio said very clearly: Anybody with direct ties to the IRGC is not coming into the United States of America, and they\u2019re not going to let the World Cup be the reason why they can come in,\u201d Giuliani said. \u201cSo I think it\u2019s very clear why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran captain Mehdi Taremi said the team endured five hours of travel and security checks during what\u2019s normally a very short trip from Tijuana to the Los Angeles area on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think FIFA have to help us more than this,\u201d Taremi said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al Jazeera – LOS ANGELES, Mehdi Torabi issued a new visa after previous one expired…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":55016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":81,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55017,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55014\/revisions\/55017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}