{"id":72556,"date":"2026-04-24T02:54:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/24\/us-says-iran-players-welcome-at-2026-world-cup-amid-call-for-italy-to-take-their-place\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T02:54:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:54:53","slug":"us-says-iran-players-welcome-at-2026-world-cup-amid-call-for-italy-to-take-their-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/24\/us-says-iran-players-welcome-at-2026-world-cup-amid-call-for-italy-to-take-their-place\/","title":{"rendered":"US says Iran players welcome at 2026 World Cup amid call for Italy to take their place"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>No one from US \u2018told them they can\u2019t come\u2019, Rubio says<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Delegation members with ties to IRGC may be barred<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Iran\u2019s footballers will be welcome at this year\u2019s World Cup, secretary of state Marco Rubio said Thursday, distancing the United States government from a proposal that Italy could take their place in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Rubio denied that the government had asked the Iranian team not to come to the World Cup \u2013 but warned the US may yet bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation it judged to have ties to Tehran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Washington and several other governments.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/apr\/24\/iran-welcome-at-us-world-cup-2026-italy\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one from US \u2018told them they can\u2019t come\u2019, Rubio says Delegation members with ties to IRGC may be barred Iran\u2019s footballers will be welcome at this year\u2019s World Cup, secretary of state Marco Rubio said Thursday, distancing the United States government from a proposal that Italy could take their place in the tournament. Speaking &#8230; <a title=\"US says Iran players welcome at 2026 World Cup amid call for Italy to take their place\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/24\/us-says-iran-players-welcome-at-2026-world-cup-amid-call-for-italy-to-take-their-place\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about US says Iran players welcome at 2026 World Cup amid call for Italy to take their place\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}