Iran says U.S. has denied visas to key World Cup officials - ESPN

ANTALYA, Turkey — Iran's soccer federation has accused the United States of «vindictive behavior» after saying that visas were refused for «key managerial and administrative members» of its World Cup team.

The Iran Football Federation's secretary-general, Hedayat Mombeini, and its vice president, Mehdi Mohammad Nabi, were among 14 backroom staff and officials without U.S. visas before games in Los Angeles and Seattle, according to Iranian state television.

It was unclear whether the federation's president, Mehdi Taj, had been issued a visa.

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Iran's team set off from Turkey for its training base in Mexico on Saturday before three group matches in the United States later this month. Officials who have been denied visas were due to travel to Mexico while efforts continued to obtain them, Iranian news agency Tasnim reported.

The team's participation in the World Cup has been complicated by the Iran war. Problems with processing visas had earlier led Iran to move its training base from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico, which is on the border with California.

The decision to deny visas to some members of Iran's entourage had «effectively denied the Iranian national team the opportunity for a level playing field and a competition free from discrimination,» according to a statement on the federation's website. It added that the federation would pursue the matter through world soccer authority FIFA.

The Iranian Embassy in Ankara, meanwhile, responded to an earlier social media post from U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack, in which he congratulated his embassy staff for processing the Iran team's visas.

«You cannot whitewash conduct that violates FIFA regulations and breaches the