A divided World Cup tests Asia, Africa teams

Geopolitical tensions and visa hurdles challenge Asian and African teams chasing football World Cup glory

- Deepti Patwardhan

In his 1945 essay, The Sporting Spirit, George Orwell wrote: “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.”

While Orwell's musings were about sport's value in a post-World War II Europe, his words strike a nerve 80 years later as we head into the football World Cup.

War is not just an analogy this time. One of the host nations of the 2026 FIFA World Cup (WC), the US, is actively at war with one of the competing teams, Iran—a first in tournament history. The US has tried to apply every bit of diplomatic pressure to make life difficult for Iran at the World Cup. Iran had to shift their training base from the US to Tijuana, Mexico and players were given visas only 10 days before their opening match. Some of the support staff have been denied entry, while the visa restrictions mean they have to enter and exit US, where they play all their three group matches, on the same day of the match. While their first two matches are in Los Angeles, the final group game is in Seattle, over 2,000km away from where they are camping.

“This represents the worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport,” the Iranian embassy in Ankara, Turkey posted.

Though the tournament is bigger than ever before, with 48 nations competing for the title rather than 32, it has never looked more divisive. And Asian and African teams, already considered outsiders in a tournament dominated by Europe and South America, are being made to feel unwelcome. Not just Iran, players, fans and support staff from other Asian and African countries have also faced issues while obtaining visas.