FIFA approved Iran's request to move its World Cup base camp from the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico, confirmed on Tuesday 26 May on FIFA's official 48-camp list 1 2. The Tucson facility had been cited across five prior updates as the operational proof Iran meant to play, a working base no political row had displaced . The move to Mexico reverses that narrative: the camp that signalled commitment has been relocated to the wrong side of the border.
Tijuana resolves one problem and creates another. Iran's three group matches fall in Los Angeles on Monday 15 June and Sunday 21 June and in Seattle on Friday 26 June, so a squad based in Mexico must cross into the United States and back three times. Mehdi Taj, president of the FFIRI (Iran's football federation, distinct from its sports ministry), framed Tijuana as removing the friction of preparing on US soil, since the team can fly into Mexico, while in the same breath demanding multiple-entry US visas, because single-entry papers would strand the squad after the first crossing 3. He had already named the players this turns on in a 10-point ultimatum .
Those players are striker Mehdi Taremi and defender Ehsan Hajsafi, whose past military service places them inside the carve-out Secretary of State Marco Rubio set in April, barring entry to staff linked to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's elite military branch) . They applied at the US embassy in Ankara on Thursday 21 May, but the State Department has issued no adjudication. FIFA recognises federations, not governments, so the camp move is a logistics decision it can make alone; the visa is the single piece it cannot sign for. Trump endorsed Iran's participation in April , yet no instrument has followed his words, and the operational fact has settled the question again while the political track stays silent.
