With the World Cup taking place in the United States, Iran moved its base camp to Mexico. The venues remain in the United States, but the preparation site moved outside the United States.
AP and Reuters reported on the 24th (Korea time) that the Iran Football Federation said it would change its base camp for the 2026 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in North and Central America from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico.
The president of the Iran Football Federation, Mehdi Taz, said he had received approval after discussions with FIFA.
Iran's choice is not a simple change of training site. The fact that one of the World Cup host countries is the United States acted as a variable. Iran pushed for the transfer of its base camp citing U.S. entry visa issues, safety concerns related to the situation in the Middle East, and travel routes.
Tijuana is a northwestern Mexican city bordering the United States. Iran judged that flight time to Los Angeles, where it will play its first two group matches, is short, and that internal movement within Mexico and operation of flights would be relatively smooth.
The match venues have not changed. Iran will meet New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt in the North and Central America World Cup group stage.
According to Reuters, Iran will face New Zealand on June 15, Belgium on June 21 in Inglewood near Los Angeles, and Egypt on June 26 in Seattle. Only the base camp is being set up in Tijuana, Mexico, not in the United States.
Iran had planned to use the training facilities in Tucson, Arizona. But it changed the plan with less than a month to go before the tournament. Political and diplomatic issues affected the national team's operations in this World Cup, which is being run as a co-hosted event by FIFA.
In particular, Iran is in a diplomatically sensitive relationship with the United States. Although the World Cup is a sporting event, team entry and exit, security, flights, accommodation and travel to training sites all have to go through the host country's administrative systems.
From Iran's perspective, basing itself in Mexico and traveling to matches as needed was seen as reducing risk compared with staying inside the United States for the duration of the tournament.
In the end, Iran's World Cup preparations faced external variables before sporting performance. Choosing not to base a camp in the United States while playing matches there. The complexity of the expanded 48-team, three-country joint-host World Cup was revealed first by Iran's transfer of its base camp.
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