Iran to play final World Cup warm-up behind closed doors before heading to Mexico

Iran's national soccer team is set to play its final World Cup warm-up match against Mali in Turkey on Thursday. The game will be held behind closed doors, with no media attendance, as per a statement from the Iranian football federation (FFIRI). This match precedes the team's departure for their tournament base in Mexico on Saturday.

The team's journey to the World Cup has been fraught with uncertainty since the US and Israel initiated air strikes against Iran in late February. Despite these challenges, Iran qualified early and has since participated in three friendly matches during training camps in Antalya, Turkey, securing one win against Gambia and losses to Nigeria, while also defeating Costa Rica.

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Considering the importance of the Iranian national football team's friendly match against Mali, and in line with the tactical objectives of Iran's head coach, tomorrow's match against Mali will be held behind closed doors and without media attendance.

Further complicating their participation, US officials have indicated that while the Iranian soccer squad can enter the United States, individuals with connections to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which both the US and Canada classify as a terrorist entity, will be denied entry. This follows an incident where FFIRI President Mehdi Taj was refused entry into Canada for the FIFA Congress due to his links to the IRGC.

To mitigate border issues, the FFIRI successfully persuaded FIFA to allow the team to change its tournament base from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico. From Tijuana, the team will travel across the border for their initial group stage matches against New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles. Their final group game against Egypt is scheduled to take place in Seattle.

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What we're not going to allow is for them to embed in their delegation a bunch of people that we know have nothing to do with athletics and have ties to the IRGC or things of that nature, so we were going to watch that very closely.