2026 FIFA WORLD CUP: Iran moves camp to Mexico as DRC World Cup squad ordered to isolate due to Ebola outbreak

Iran will base ‌their squad in the Mexican border city of Tijuana ⁠during this ⁠year’s World Cup after football’s world governing body FIFA approved a request to move its training camp from Arizona, ⁠the head of Iran’s football federation said on Saturday.

“We will be based in the Tijuana camp, which is near the Pacific ⁠Ocean and on the border between Mexico and the United States,” Iran’s Football Federation President Mehdi Taj said in a video posted on its Telegram social media account.

Taj added that the switch would help ‌avoid visa-related complications following the US-Israel war on Iran, and that the squad would be able to fly directly to Mexico with Iran Air.

Iran will play their first two Group G matches in Los Angeles, against New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, ⁠before facing Egypt in Seattle on June 26.

“The ⁠total distance between us and the venue of our games in Los Angeles is 55 minutes by flight,” Taj said, adding that Tijuana was closer to their ⁠match venues than the team’s previously planned camp in Arizona.

Iran has faced uncertainty for months ⁠over travel and security arrangements for the ⁠World Cup, which will be cohosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, and had asked for their games to be moved from the US.

Iranian officials said this month that their players and staff had yet to receive US ‌visas, less than a month before the start of the tournament. They began visa applications during their stay in Turkiye for pre-tournament training.

Taj said FIFA had been asked for guarantees over visas, security ‌and ‌the treatment of the Iranian delegation.

Elsewhere, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have no plans to change its preparations for the World Cup despite a warning from the United States that the national team must isolate for 21 days before arriving in the country.

Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force for the World Cup, told ESPN that US officials had informed FIFA, the DRC team and the government in Kinshasa that the squad was to remain in a bubble in Belgium, where players are training, due to the African country’s deadly Ebola outbreak.

“We’ve been very clear to Congo that they should maintain the integrity of their bubble for 21 days before they can then come to Houston on June 11th,” Giuliani said. “We’ve made it very clear to the Congo government as well that they need to maintain that bubble or they risk not being able to travel to the United States. We cannot be any clearer. We want to make sure there is nothing that’s going to come in or near our borders.”

In a separate statement to AFP sent by the US Department of Homeland Security, Giuliani emphasised that the priority was the “safety and security of the American people, participating teams, and millions of fans”.