{"id":27875,"date":"2026-03-06T10:37:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T08:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=27875"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:37:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T08:37:48","slug":"irans-world-cup-uncertainty-leaves-tucson-training-facility-in-limbo","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/irans-world-cup-uncertainty-leaves-tucson-training-facility-in-limbo\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran&#8217;s World Cup uncertainty leaves Tucson training facility in limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Eighteen months of preparation hang in the balance at a Tucson-based multi-use sports facility, where organisers say they remain in daily contact with International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) \u200babout hosting Iran&#8217;s national soccer team, even as geopolitical turmoil threatens to upend their World Cup plans.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Iran is scheduled to play their World Cup group stage matches \u200con United States (US) soil, two in Los Angeles and one in Seattle, with Tucson&#8217;s sprawling Kino Sports Complex selected as the team&#8217;s base camp training site for the June 11 and July 19 tournament.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But those plans were thrown into doubt when the US, Israeli campaign against Iran began last weekend with strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The campaign entered its sixth day on Thursday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We do know there&#8217;s a lot of geopolitical activities going on right now,&#8221; \u200bSarah Horvath, Director of the Kino Sports Complex, told\u00a0<em>Reuters<\/em>. &#8220;That being said, we are in communication daily with FIFA. Team Iran is still coming here as of right \u200bnow, we look forward to hosting them.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Iran qualified for their fourth consecutive World Cup and were drawn into Group G alongside \u2060Belgium, Egypt, and New Zealand.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Teams were able to choose from a curated list provided by FIFA which cities they wanted to use as training camps and it was announced last \u200bmonth that Iran, who are 20th in the world rankings, selected the Kino Sports Complex.<\/div>\n<div>for a backup plan.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20527,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-27875","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"FIFA World Cup","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27881,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27875\/revisions\/27881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=27875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}