{"id":32953,"date":"2026-04-24T18:11:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=32953"},"modified":"2026-04-24T18:11:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:11:51","slug":"iranian-players-with-no-ircg-links-welcome-to-world-cup-marco-rubio","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/iranian-players-with-no-ircg-links-welcome-to-world-cup-marco-rubio\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian players with no IRCG links welcome to World Cup: Marco Rubio"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>United States (US) Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Washington has no objections to Iranian players participating in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>However, he says, the players will not be allowed to bring with them people with ties to Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>After the start of the US-Israel war in Iran, Iran requested that FIFA move the team\u2019s three group matches from \u2060the US to Mexico, but the request was rejected.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Rubio said the US only has a problem with Iran and not its athletes.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He says if the team wanted to bring others with ties to the IRGC, they would not be allowed entry into the United States.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Rubio dismissed as speculation media reports that the US asked FIFA to replace Iran with Italy in the World Cup.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cI don\u2019t know where that\u2019s coming from other than speculation that Iran may decide not to come, and Italy taking their spot.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22848,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-32953","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Rubio said the US only has a problem with Iran and not its athletes.","published_date":"","news_description":"Rubio said the US only has a problem with Iran and not its athletes.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32953","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\/32953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32954,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32953\/revisions\/32954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}