{"id":36430,"date":"2026-06-07T11:41:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T09:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=36430"},"modified":"2026-06-07T12:03:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T10:03:54","slug":"iran-world-cup-players-get-us-visas-some-staff-waiting-official","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/iran-world-cup-players-get-us-visas-some-staff-waiting-official\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran World Cup players get US visas, some staff waiting: Official"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Iran\u2019s Ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, says Tehran is concerned about the refusal of the United States (US) to grant visas to some members of Iran\u2019s World Cup delegation, including coaches.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a news conference in Tijuana, Mexico, where Iran is based, Pasandideh said long travel, extra flights, coordination issues and lost time could affect Iran\u2019s national team.<\/p>\n<p>Pasandideh also says Iran has shown through sport and the World Cup that it has sought peace. He has referred to what he describes as aggression against his country.<\/p>\n<p>The issue arose as teams and officials prepared for World Cup activities in North America, where travel logistics and entry requirements form part of the organisation of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22138,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-36430","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The issue arose as teams and officials prepared for World Cup activities in North America.","published_date":"","news_description":"The issue arose as teams and officials prepared for World Cup activities in North America.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36430","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":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36433,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36430\/revisions\/36433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}