US says Iran players welcome at 2026 World Cup amid call for Italy to take their place

Iran’s footballers will be welcome at this year’s World Cup, secretary of state Marco Rubio said Thursday, distancing the United States government from a proposal that Italy could take their place in the tournament.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Rubio denied that the government had asked the Iranian team not to come to the World Cup – but warned the US may yet bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation it judged to have ties to Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Washington and several other governments.

No one “from the US has told them they can’t come,” Rubio said of Iran’s World Cup participation. “The problem with Iran, it would be not their athletes, it would be some of the other people [they] would want to bring with them, some of whom have ties to the IRGC,” Rubio said. “We may not be able to let them in, but not the athletes themselves.”

Rubio was responding to a reported proposal from Italy-born US special envoy Paolo Zampolli, who told the Financial Times he had floated the idea of Italy taking Iran’s World Cup place to US president Donald Trump and football’s world governing body Fifa. The proposal was dismissed out of hand by the Italian government and sports officials earlier on Thursday.

Rubio said the proposal did not reflect the US government’s position. “I don’t know where that’s coming from, other than speculation that Iran may decide not to come, and Italy would fill their spot,” Rubio said. “But that’s if they decide not to come on their own, it’s because they decided not to come.”

Zampolli told the FT on Wednesday it would be a “dream” to see Italy at the finals in the United States, Mexico and Canada despite the fact they lost in a qualification playoff last month. – However, Italy’s sports minister Andrea Abodi said on Thursday that a reinstatement of Italy “first, is not possible; second, is not appropriate, you qualify on the pitch”.

That view was echoed by the president of Italy’s Olympic committee, Luciano Buonfiglio. “I would feel offended. You have to earn your place in the World Cup,” he said.

The Iranian embassy to Rome responded saying that the suggestion showed US “moral bankruptcy” and that Italy did not need “political privileges” to demonstrate its football greatness.

Italy have won the World Cup four times, but it missed out on the tournament for a third successive time after losing a penalty shootout to Bosnia and Herzegovina in their qualifying playoff final.

Iran’s participation at the World Cup has been thrown into doubt by the war with the US and Israel that broke out on 28 February. The Iranian football federation had said in April it was “negotiating” with Fifa to relocate the country’s World Cup matches from the United States to Mexico.

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