{"id":37659,"date":"2026-06-21T13:42:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T11:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=37659"},"modified":"2026-06-21T13:42:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T11:42:00","slug":"iran-to-lodge-fifa-complaint-over-world-cup-travel-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/iran-to-lodge-fifa-complaint-over-world-cup-travel-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran to lodge FIFA complaint over World Cup travel restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Iran plans to lodge a complaint with football\u2019s world governing body, FIFA, over travel restrictions its team is facing in the United States (US) at the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Due to uncertainty over visas and the conflict with the US, the Iranian team is commuting from their tournament base in co-host Mexico for their three group games in the US<\/p>\n<p>US authorities require them to enter within 24 hours of a match and leave the same day.<\/p>\n<p>Leading team coach Amir Ghalenoei said Iran was the \u201cmost oppressed\u201d team in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The federation said in a statement on Friday announcing its protest to FIFA, \u201cThe Football Federation of Iran believes these restrictions are inconsistent with the principles of providing equal conditions for participating teams and may affect their technical preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>FIFA did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":37255,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-37659","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"US authorities require them to enter within 24 hours of a match and leave the same day.","published_date":"","news_description":"US authorities require them to enter within 24 hours of a match and leave the same day.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37659","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\/37659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37660,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37659\/revisions\/37660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}