Iranian soccer players will be invited to this year’s World Cup, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday, distancing the US government from a suggestion that Italy could replace them at the tournament.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Rubio denied that Washington asked the Iranian team not to come to the World Cup, but warned that the United States could still block the entry of members of the Iranian delegation deemed to have ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Tehran (IRGC), which is considered a terrorist organization by Washington and several other governments.
Nobody “from the United States has told them they can’t come”, Rubio said about Iran’s participation in the World Cup.
“Iran’s problem, it would not be their athletes, it would be some other people (they) would want to bring with them, some of whom have ties to the IRGC. We may not be able to allow them, but not the athletes themselves,” Rubio added.
Rubio was responding to a proposal reported by the Italian-born American special envoy, Paolo Zampolli, who told the Financial Times that he objected to the idea of Italy replacing Iran in the World Cup for US President Donald Trump and the world soccer federation Fifa.
The proposal was rejected by the Italian government and sports officials earlier on Thursday.
