Iran National Football Team© NDTV
It has been one of the more politically charged storylines heading into the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and it took until the final weeks before the tournament to reach a resolution. Iran will not be based in the United States during the competition. After weeks of negotiations, visa concerns, and public pressure from all directions, FIFA has approved a relocation of the Iranian squad’s base camp from Tucson, Arizona to Tijuana, Mexico. The team will cross the border only for matches.
How It Got To This Point
The original plan had Iran training at the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, a facility that had been preparing for months to host them. Staff at the Kino Sports Complex had been cutting grass to FIFA regulation height, locking in hotel rooms and meeting spaces, and holding up to 20 meetings a week to get everything ready. The complex director described the city as welcoming Iran with open arms.
But the political backdrop never settled. Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic ties since 1980, and players were using a stint in Turkey to complete visa procedures, with federation head Mehdi Taj confirming no visas had been issued as recently as last week.
Iran had previously pushed FIFA to move its actual matches from the US to Mexico, a request FIFA flatly rejected, saying all games would be played as per the schedule announced in December 2025. The compromise reached is a different one: the matches stay where they are, but the team will not set foot in the United States until they have to.
Trump complicated things further in March, writing on social media that while the Iranian team was “welcome” to participate, he did not “believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety.” Those comments intensified the pressure on Iran’s federation to find an alternative.
What The Tijuana Arrangement Looks Like
According to Taj, the relocation to Tijuana is expected to ease most of the visa-related concerns, as players and staff will be able to prepare on Mexican soil and enter the United States only on matchdays. The travel time to Seattle for Iran’s fixture against Egypt is roughly three hours from Tijuana, comparable to the original Arizona setup.
Iran is scheduled to play all three of its group-stage matches in the United States. The federation is in the final stages of formalising the new base camp contract and Taj has raised the possibility of Iran Air running direct flights to Mexico to support the team throughout the tournament.
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