Fifa president Gianni Infantino has confirmed Iran will play their World Cup matches in the United States this summer.
His comments follow recent uncertainty stemming from US and Israeli airstrikes on 28 February.
Further concerns arose as Iran’s football association was the sole absentee from Thursday’s Fifa Congress in Vancouver.
It is understood two delegates, with Canadian visas, chose not to attend after a group member was denied entry in Toronto.
Infantino, however, opened his Congress address by insisting the Iranian team would indeed participate at the North American finals
“Let me start at the outset by confirming straight away, for those who maybe want to say something else or write something else, that of course Iran will be participating at the World Cup 2026,” the Swiss said, to cheers from the assembled delegates.
“And of course, Iran will play in the United States of America. The reason for that is simple, because we have to unite. We have to bring people together.”
Iran will kick off their campaign against New Zealand in Los Angeles on June 15. If they and the US finish second in their respective groups, the sides will meet in the last 32.
US president Donald Trump has previously stated it would be “inappropriate” for Iran to compete “for their own life and safety”.
Asked about Infantino’s remarks later that day, Mr Trump responded: "Well if Gianni said it, I’m OK. Did Gianni say it? Gianni Infantino – that’s a piece of work.”
Asked what would happen if Iran won, Trump replied: “If they win we’ll have to worry about that. I’m going to have to worry about that one.
“You know what, let them play. Gianni is fantastic, he’s a friend of mine, he talked about it, I said, ‘you do whatever you want’. You can have them, you don’t have to have them, they probably have a good team. Do they have a good team, do you have any idea?”
Infantino added: “There are enough problems around the world. There are enough people who try to divide all over the world. If nobody tries to unite, what will happen to our world? We have to do it, and we have this opportunity.”
Associations will be invited to vote for Fifa’s next president at the 2027 Congress, and although Infantino did not confirm his candidacy in Vancouver, he set out some of the achievements of the organisation under his leadership over the last decade.
He referenced 2.7 billion US dollars (£2bn) of development funding budgeted for the 2027 to 2030 cycle, an eightfold increase on the level prior to him taking office.
He also said revenue for the current cycle, 2022 to 2026, would be more than 14bn US dollars (£10.3bn), ahead of budget.
The majority of that revenue stems from this summer’s World Cup finals. Fifa has faced stiff criticism for the pricing of World Cup tickets, and the decision to adopt a dynamic pricing strategy.
Infantino said: “You’ve heard there were many discussions about the ticketing of the World Cup.
“We had 500 million ticket requests. In the last two World Cups together, we had 50 million ticket requests. Here, 500 million. We sold 100 per cent of the inventory that we put on the market, which is more or less 90 per cent of the global inventory so far. And of course, we are always putting tickets on the market.
“There are expensive tickets, yes, but there are also affordable tickets.”
Infantino added that all revenue generated goes back into the game in distributions to member associations, and development of new and existing competitions.
“In a big majority of our countries, we could not have organised football the way we know it without the grants and the revenues and the Fifa Forward programme.”
