Who will replace Iran at US World Cup? Everything we know as boycott confirmed | Football | Sport

Iran’s military responded with strikes of its own, targeting neighbours in the Gulf, such as Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The conflict looks as if it is going to have an impact on the upcoming World Cup, with Iranian officials claiming their national team won’t be involved.

Iran had qualified top of their section in the Asian qualification system, and were drawn into a group with Belgium, Egypt and New Zealand. Doubt was cast on their participation in the immediate aftermath of the airstrikes, with further clarification having now been provided by the country’s sports minister, Ahmad Donyamali.

He said during a television interview: “Considering that this corrupt ⁠regime [the US] has ⁠assassinated our leader, under no circumstances ⁠can we ⁠participate in ⁠the World Cup. In view of the malicious measures taken against Iran, two wars were forced upon us within eight or nine months, and several thousand of our people were killed. Our children are not safe and, fundamentally, such conditions for participation do not exist.”

An official withdrawal hasn’t been submitted to FIFA yet, but with fewer than 100 days until the tournament gets underway, it has thrown the entire competition into jeopardy. Should Iran pull out, FIFA would need to replace them at short notice, but that is expected to cause geopolitical and logistical problems.

The FIFA rulebook states a replacement will come from: “a nominated alternate, often the direct runner-up from the relevant qualifying playoff or highest-ranked non-qualified team from that confederation.”

It likely means FIFA have three solutions, one being to fast-track the UAE into the competition proper, as they finished behind Iran in qualification. However, the UAE lost to Iraq during the Asian confederation’s play-in match for the intercontinental play-off, which is set to take place in a few weeks.

Iraq will play the winner of Bolivia and Suriname for a spot at the World Cup – a fixture that throws a spanner in the works for deciding on a potential replacement. There have been suggestions that FIFA could give Iraq an automatic spot in the tournament as Iran’s replacement, with the UAE featuring in the intercontinental play-off instead.

However, given the tight turnaround for that particular match, Iran’s withdrawal would have to be ratified pretty quickly, so that the UAE can prepare for the game. Bolivia and Suriname face off on March 26, with the winner currently due to play Iraq on April 1.

The final path that FIFA would only go down if all of the other options had been exhausted would be to reconfigure the group and have Belgium, Egypt and New Zealand compete among each other. But, given that third-place teams in some groups will progress to the knockouts, that would again provide a logistical problem for the organisers.