Iran football chief pessimistic about FIFA World Cup following US air strikes
Iran's soccer chief said his country could not look forward to this year's FIFA World Cup, which the United States is co-hosting. The deadly conflict has forced the postponement of soccer competitions and forced F1 personnel to change flights to Melbourne for this weekend's season opener.
ABC News — Reverberations from the Middle East conflict are hitting global sport, with Iran's soccer chief offering a bleak outlook for the FIFA World Cup in the United States. The day after the US and Israel began air strikes against his country, Iran's football federation president Mehdi Taj told sports portal Varzesh3: "What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope." He was also reported as saying that it was Iran's sports chiefs who would have to decide what would happen.
Iran has been drawn in group G at the World Cup in June, and is scheduled to play New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles, and Egypt in Seattle.
FIFA said it was monitoring the situation, while Andrew Giuliani, director of the White House World Cup task force, said on X on Saturday: "We'll deal with soccer games tomorrow — tonight, we celebrate their opportunity for freedom."
Iran's football preparations for the tournament will be affected because no matches will be played during the 40-day mourning period after the death of the nation's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Saturday's attacks.
Iran's women's team is in Australia for the Asian Cup , and faces South Korea on the Gold Coast this evening.
Other sports have also been affected by the conflict, which has blown up just a week before the start of the Formula 1 season at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, with many of the teams' 2,000 personnel reportedly having to make new flight arrangements due to key airport stopover hubs in the Middle East being closed.
Pirelli cancelled planned F1 tests of its wet-weather grand prix tyres on Bahrain's Sakhir circuit over the weekend for safety reasons, but reported all its employees were safe in the capital of Manama before their planned return to Britain and Italy.
The Qatar soccer federation postponed all tournaments and matches until further notice on Sunday, adding only that "new dates for the resumption of competitions will be announced in due course".
Asian soccer's governing body has postponed its Champions League play-offs, due to be played in the Middle East this week, saying the round-of-16 games will be rescheduled.
SailGP is still planning to hold its $US2 million ($2.83 million) grand final in Abu Dhabi, but Australia skipper Tom Slingsby says "there's no way" that position is tenable if conflict continues in the region.
Attacks on the UAE damaged the international airport and iconic Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, where SailGP plans to host its penultimate regatta of the ongoing season.
AAP with agencies