Iran will become the first country in World Cup history to compete on the soil of a host nation with which it is at war, when its national team faces New Zealand in Los Angeles on Monday. The match takes place amid ongoing hostilities between Iran and the US, which have intensified in recent days as a fragile ceasefire has failed to hold.
The political backdrop undermines Fifa's 'football unites the world' slogan, according to analysts. 'There's never been a World Cup where one of the hosts is openly threatening war crimes against one of the participating nations,' said Jules Boykoff, a politics professor at Pacific University in Oregon.
Iran's participation was in doubt after Donald Trump suggested it would be safer for them to stay away. Squad members were only granted US visas this week, although several officials, including the president of Iran's football governing body, have been denied entry. The team has been training in Tijuana, Mexico, and will travel to Los Angeles on match days only, returning to Mexico overnight.
An ideological tug-of-war between Iran's Islamic regime and its opponents has further complicated matters. An officially sanctioned World Cup video depicted players as representatives of Shia Islamist ideology, drawing criticism. Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed shah, attacked efforts to portray the team as regime emissaries, saying many Iranians no longer see the national team as representing the nation.
