The Treatment of Iran’s World Cup Team Exposed the West's and FIFA's Double Standards

Iran’s football captain was asked about LGBT rights. So, why then wasn’t the U.S. team captain asked about the U.S. bombing of the girls' school in Minab?

Jun 30, 2026

Editor’s Note: Thank you for being a Zeteo UK subscriber. We thought you might find Fatima Bhutto’s latest piece for Zeteo, about Iran and the double standards at the 2026 World Cup, a worthwhile read, so we are republishing it at Zeteo UK and dropping the paywall.

If you’re currently only a Zeteo UK subscriber but want to get more content like Fatima’s from Zeteo as well, consider upgrading to our bundle option.

When the Iranian football team left Los Angeles after their second match at the 2026 World Cup, they left behind a handwritten note in their locker room thanking the city for “its hospitality.” Iranian politeness is famous, but “hospitality” is not the word that comes to mind when I think of how the Iranian national team has been treated by FIFA and the United States, one of the World Cup’s 2026 host countries. Not only did President Donald Trump welcome the team back in March by saying that he did not think the team’s participation in the tournament was “appropriate,” citing possible dangers to their “lives and safety,” but his administration also denied as many visas as possible, required the team to leave the U.S. immediately after every match, and forced them to be based across the border in Mexico, initially allowing entry to the great United States only within 24 hours before a match. When the Iranian national anthem played, as is customary, before their two games in a Los Angeles Stadium, parts of the crowd booed.

At every press conference, journalists who have spent careers lobbing softballs at sportsmen made sure to quiz Iranian captain Mehdi Taremi as obnoxiously as possible, asking him after the team’s 1-1 draw against Egypt whether he supports LGBT people. “We respect all of the LGBT people,” Taremi answered, before wondering if the journalist had any questions about the actual game of football that had been played. One can only assume that Kylian Mbappé, the French captain, was quizzed on Emmanuel Macron’s stalling of the French economy, the Austrian captain questioned about his country’s love of far-right politicians, and Argentina’s team captain made to answer about why Javier Milei is such a weirdo. They weren’t. Was the U.S. captain asked about his country’s funding of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, or its bombing of a girls’ school that killed at least 100 children in Minab on the first day of Trump’s war on Iran? No? What a surprise.

I am old enough to remember when American celebrities and British pundits made a hue and cry about Qatar hosting a World Cup.

Certainly, the treatment of migrant workers and the horrible conditions they labored under, many to their deaths, was abysmal. But Rod Stewart, who said in 2022 that he had turned down a previous offer to play in Qatar because it wasn’t “right to go” there, was perfectly happy jumping up and down at recent game in the U.S. All those newspapers and public figures that piled on about Qatar seem to have no problem with the U.S. hosting the cup, though this is a country that has endangered pregnant women and trans people, eroded women’s and gay rights, armed Israel’s holocaust of Gaza, and generally been a violent nuisance to the entire globe. An Iraqi player was questioned for hours upon arrival in the U.S. A Somali referee was denied entry to the U.S. Fans from several countries faced U.S. travel bans, severe restrictions, and high visa rejection rates. And Iran, besides being forced to be based outside the U.S., is the first team to ever play in a World Cup hosted by a state their country is at war with. Not long before Iran’s match against Egypt in Seattle on Friday, Trump ordered strikes on Iranian drone, missile, and radar sites in response to an Iranian attack on a container ship that it said was transiting the Strait of Hormuz via an unapproved route.

Iran’s first two matches were in Los Angeles, where the most virulent of the anti-Iranian Iranian diaspora are based. Tehrangeles was home to many diaspora protests in support of the war with Iran, replete with Israeli flags and pictures of Reza Pahlevi, the crown prince who has been waiting to be crowned all his life. After their recent tied match with Egypt, Taremi said what many have been thinking: this has been a “disaster World Cup.” Iran filed a formal complaint with FIFA. “We have to fight against everything here,” Taremi told reporters.

Eduardo Galeano, who was one of the world’s greatest writers on football, could have been speaking about the pompous and ridiculous Gianni Infantino when he called a previous FIFA president “a FIFA bureaucrat who never once kicked a ball but goes about in a 25-foot limousine driven by a black chauffeur.” Too busy handing out made-up “peace” prizes and kissing up to the worst people in the room, Infantino has offered no comment on FIFA’s many hypocrisies and failures. Infantino’s obsequiousness to Trump and power has tarnished a beautiful game, even one that long ago bowed to corporate interests and vulgar capitalism.

The World Cup, for whatever else it got wrong, was once still a place where people came together, and nations that were strangers to each other, countries that never met at trade tables and diplomatic corridors, became brothers on the field. I watched Iran defeat the United States in 1998. In Damascus, Syria, where I lived, cars drove across the ancient capital, honking their horns in delight for hours. And I watched them lose to their famous foes in 2022, but all I remember of those matches was tangible joy and anticipation. FIFA has none of that now. Trump and Infantino can share the credit, but the shame will always stay with the host country.

Fatima Bhutto is an award-winning author and journalist. ‘Gaza: The Story of a Genocide,’ a collection of essays she co-edited, and her memoir, ‘The Hour of the Wolf,’ are available now.