Iran's national team and their captain Ehsan Hajsafi arrived at the Tijuana International Airport in Mexico on Sunday for the 2026 Fifa World Cup despite playing all their matches in the United States.
The Fifa World Cup has long been romanticised as the ultimate global celebration, a beautiful, fleeting month where geopolitical fault lines dissolve and the world is united through a shared language of the "Beautiful Game”.
Yet, with just over 24 hours out from the opening whistle, that glossy veneer has completely shattered.
What has exposed itself instead is a logistical horror show and a deeply unsettling reality … the 2026 World Cup is careening towards disaster, heavily driven by a shameful wave of institutional racism and xenophobia on the part of the US.
Instead of a festival of unity, the last few days have felt like a chilling exercise in border enforcement and racial profiling. If football is meant to bring people together, nobody told the American immigration and security apparatus, which has treated visitors from Africa and the Middle East as security threats rather than participants.
