Hedayat Mombeni

Hedayat Mombeni serves as secretary-general of the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI), the highest administrative post in Iranian football governance below the federation president. In that role he is responsible for FFIRI's day-to-day operations, institutional correspondence with FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation, and the logistics of Iran's international football calendar. He was travelling to Vancouver for the 76th FIFA Congress — a meeting directly relevant to Iran's unresolved World Cup participation questions — when Canadian border officers turned the Iranian delegation away.

Mombeni was refused entry at Toronto Pearson Airport on 29 April 2026 alongside FFIRI president Mehdi Taj and deputy Hamed Momeni. All three held valid Canadian visas when CBSA revoked Taj's permission and denied the entire delegation entry . Canada Border Services Agency cited Taj's reported former IRGC command role; Mombeni himself was not the primary subject of the security review, but he was turned back as part of the same delegation. The three officials flew back to Turkey on the first available service.

The incident drew a public response from Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, who called the revocation 'unintentional' . As a senior administrator rather than a named security concern, Mombeni's exclusion illustrated the collateral effect of security checks applied at the delegation level rather than the individual level. Iran's representatives — including those against whom no security concerns had been raised — were absent from the Congress.