FFIRI, the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said on Tuesday 9 June that US organisers had revoked its entire 8% supporter ticket allocation for all three group matches: New Zealand on 15 June, Belgium on 21 June and Egypt on 26 June 1. Fans who had already bought through official channels can no longer attend, and Tehran called the move contrary to FIFA's neutrality principles 2.
The mechanism sits in sanctions law, not match-day policy. US economic sanctions bar a US-based entity, which the FIFA26 local organiser is, from processing transactions involving residents of Iran 3. That is a different category of obstacle from the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) discretion that blocked Iran's staff visas after the squad reached Tijuana with 14 officials denied entry . A visa decision can be lobbied; a Treasury prohibition holds until a formal licence overrides it. FIFA said it is working with FFIRI on compliant solutions, which signals it understands the constraint but has no waiver in hand.
The squad plays on under degraded conditions. Roughly 300 Mexican soldiers and National Guard escort the team between its Tijuana base and training, and Iran must cross the border for every fixture, beginning at SoFi Stadium on Monday 15 June 4. The access problem reaches beyond Iran: Ghana's supporters faced their own fan-visa refusals , which makes the ticket bar the sharper precedent, because any sanctioned nation reaching a US-hosted tournament would meet the same wall.
