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Fifa is still aiming for Iran to play at the 2026 World Cup, despite the suggestion of Italy replacing them illustrating how the situation is reaching ever deeper levels of politicisation.
With the US-Iran conflict still unresolved, Paolo Zampolli - an envoy to the United States president - confirmed to the Financial Times that he floated the idea of the four-time winners stepping in to both Donald Trump and Fifa president Gianni Infantino.
“I'm an Italian native and it would be a dream to see the Azzurri at a US-hosted tournament,” Zampolli said. “With four titles, they have the pedigree to justify inclusion.”
The idea has been privately dismissed by numerous football sources as “rubbish” and “never going to happen”.
The primary reason for this is the will to keep Iran in it as long as possible. If the conflict ultimately made the situation untenable, however, it is seen as absurd for Fifa to just drop in another country of their choosing unlinked to Iran in qualification. The governing body could even open itself up to claims in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. There would be no good reason, for example, for Italy to replace Iran rather than Ireland or Wales, despite the history.
Most football administrators see the “fairest” way to replace Iran as giving the prospective spot to the next team down in their Asian qualification process. This would be the United Arab Emirates, who finished third in the relevant qualification group, just missing out on direct qualification. This would be on the basis of Iran’s presence essentially being erased from this campaign, so just moving the rest of the teams up the table.
There is also some football precedent in how Denmark famously replaced the banned Yugoslavia in Euro 92, to go and then win the competition.
That was a Uefa competition rather than a Fifa one, however, which touches on two problems for Infantino in this situation.
One is that Fifa have “no fixed rules” for replacing a team at a World Cup, as one senior source told The Independent. The current rules only state that the governing body has “sole discretion” on what happens if a team is excluded or withdraws, with article six of World Cup regulations adding “Fifa may decide to replace the Participating Member Association in question with another association”.
Such an opaque description leaves open a range of potential solutions, that many interested parties are naturally hoping to influence. Other ideas that have been floated are another mini play-off in June, with the contenders drawn out of a hat from those who missed out in the March play-offs.
Fifa last month held discussions on potential contingency plans, but there is still no firm roadmap.
Infantino is nevertheless intent on Iran being there, to the point of making a trip to meet the national team last month.
This is due to the desire for the perception of his World Cups running smoothly, wanting to avoid an unprecedented modern situation of a team actually having to withdraw, and also Infantino's own grand ideas on how football can "unite the world". He would see it as politically powerful for Iran to play despite everything happening. Many also wonder whether Infantino ultimately desires a Nobel Peace Prize of his own, in the same way that was suspected of predecessor Sepp Blatter.
The traction that Zampolli’s suggestion received has nevertheless emphasised a second problem for Infantino, which is the political pressure that his Fifa have willingly brought on themselves.
Much has been made of the Swiss official’s relationship with Trump - symbolised by the awarding of a Fifa's own derided new peace prize - and there has long been a feeling that this is complicating the body’s navigation of geopolitical issues.
One of the reasons that bodies like Fifa and Uefa have it in their statutes to be apolitical is so they can respond neutrally to geopolitical developments as and when they affect football. Infantino’s proximity to Trump is nevertheless seen as impinging on this, mostly out of the perception that he doesn’t want to irritate the US president ahead of a logistically complex World Cup where any single government decision could cause chaos.
The reticence to actually discuss a strategy on Iran is seen as of a piece with this, given that so much of it is dependent on US policy and Infantino does not want to cut across that.
It also means the Fifa president has to give credence to those close to Trump - like Zampolli.
For now, however, there are no plans to replace Iran with Italy.
The issue is that there are as yet no concrete plans for Iran at all, other than to hope for the best.