Iran’s bleak vision of World Cup following US attacks
Ian Chadband |
The reverberations of the Middle East conflict continue to hit global sport, with Iran’s soccer chief offering a bleak outlook for the men’s World Cup in the United States.
The day after the US and Israel began air attacks against his country, Iran’s football federation president Mehdi Taj told sports portal Varzesh3 on Sunday: “What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope.”
He also was reported as saying it was Iran’s sport chiefs who would have to decide about what will happen.
Iran’s women’s football team will play their Asian Cup opener on Monday night in Brisbane.
Iran’s men’s team have been drawn into group G at the World Cup in June, and are scheduled to play New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles, and Egypt in Seattle.
FIFA has said it is monitoring the situation, while Andrew Giuliani, director of the White House World Cup task force, said on X on Saturday: “We’ll deal with soccer games tomorrow — tonight, we celebrate their opportunity for freedom.”
Iran’s football preparations for the tournament will be affected as no matches will be played during the 40-day mourning period for the death of their leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Saturday’s attacks.
Other sports remain affected by the conflict which started just a week before the start of the Formula One season at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
Australian Grand Prix chief executive Travis Auld expected no impact on this weekend’s season-opener at Albert Park from the travel issues caused by the conflict in the Middle East.
Many of the F1 teams’ 2000 personnel had to make new flight arrangements with key airport stopover hubs in Middle East closed.
“F1 are experts at moving people around the world and so they’ve quickly rescheduled flights,” Auld told Fox Sports on Monday.
“I’m told everyone is now locked in and arriving within the required timeframes and so there’ll be no impact on our race.”
Pirelli cancelled their planned F1 tests of their wet-weather grand prix tyres on Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit over the weekend on safety grounds, but reported all its employees were safe in the capital of Manama before their planned return to Britain and Italy.
Meanwhile, Qatar’s soccer federation postponed all tournaments and matches until further notice on Sunday, adding only that “new dates for the resumption of competitions will be announced in due course.”
Asian soccer’s governing body has postponed its Champions League play-offs scheduled in the Middle East this week, saying the round-of-16 games will be rescheduled.
With agencies
AAP