Destination New Jersey: Can Iran play a World Cup in the USA?

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1:11You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title, and more. So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash broadcast. That's linkedin.com slash broadcast. Terms and conditions apply. This is the Football Daily Podcast with Mark Chapman. Welcome to Destination New Jersey. 42 of the 48 teams have qualified. Over the next week or so, 22 nations will compete for the final six places. Four will be European. Two will be from across the rest of the world.

2:00We'll get the latest from Mexico because that country is hosting the Intercontinental Playoffs as well. Rory Smith is with us for the next couple of hours because the start of it, really, I mean, I keep saying it's 78 days to go and so on as over on the assumption that everything will be fine. Yeah, but we always have these sort of periods before World Cups, don't we, where we kind of think this all looks fairly sort of fragile all of a sudden. I've got to admit I wasn't necessarily expecting that to happen in North America. I think quite a lot of people within kind of football's executive class had assumed this would be a bit of an easier one than Qatar and Russia and even Brazil and South Africa.

2:42It's not quite worked out like that, Chappers, but we live in hope. Yeah, but Jonathan Wilson in The Guardian, who you know is probably um just behind you as uh as favorite hipster journalist uh says um this summer's finals already feel damaged and that maybe this is different like no other yeah i think there's kind of three strands aren't there's there's the kind of the more footballing problem which is the ticket prices and the sense that this is a giant kind of rampant gouging exercise that FIFA is doing very little to stop and might even accidentally or on purpose be encouraging. There's the issue with Iran, which I think is separate from football.

3:25And I'm always slightly nervy around those things because there is a war in the Middle East. Ultimately, how that impacts the World Cup is not as important as what is actually happening. And the third thing is the situation in the US at the moment in terms of how safe, how welcoming it will be for fans from maybe not from western europe but but from a lot of countries whether they are wanted in the united states whether it is a place that they can travel safely and freely and enjoy themselves i spoke i've been working on a story this week chappers about kansas city don't call it kansas they get very upset if you call it kansas that's different uh and i spoke to have you not known that from all your nfl reading and watching that was one of the first things i learned when i did when I started the NFL.

4:12I thought you could just call it Kansas in the second dimension, but they really don't like it. Kansas City and Tampa Bay. Kansas City. You can't call Tampa Bay Tampa. But anyhow, we don't care slightly. Why not? No. Well, we'll bring in somebody who knows more about this. I mean, this is kind of irrelevant to where you started your anecdote. But it was interesting. I spoke to a guy from Joe's Barbecue, which is one of the big barbecue chains in Kansas City. And he was really keen to find out like what sort of side dishes do you think English and Dutch fans might like? And what beer should they have on tap to make sure that people get a taste of home?

4:46And it's that full on kind of Midwestern hospitality thing. But at the same, and that I think is true worldwide. When you go to these events is that people in those countries, normal people really want you to have a good time. They want to show the best side of their country. The issue with the US is whether that is reciprocated at a political and governmental level at the moment. And I think that is something that how that plays out over the next two months is almost impossible to gauge. Let's talk to Nico Cantor, who has been part of our Destination New Jersey show many times from CBS Sports and was very much nodding, as you would expect, on the Kansas-Kansas City difference.

5:28Manny Jasmi from the BBC World Service joins us as well. I think Rory's final point, Nico, was very fair and very true, actually, that the hospitality from the American people, in my experience, maybe discounting New York taxi drivers, is always positive and friendly and can want to do anything and everything for you, customer service-wise. But this doesn't necessarily correspond, as Rory says, with maybe the message of the political elite here, before we even get on to the current conflict. Yeah, Rory, well, thank you very much for having me on again. Yeah, I do think you're right, and I echo a lot about what Rory was saying.

6:12I remember South Africa and all the difficulties going into that tournament and the controversy surrounding the building of the stadiums in South Africa. Meanwhile, when I arrived at Johannesburg, I don't remember a group of people that were happier to be hosting the world in their country and the pride that came with that. And the United States carries a whole lot of pride in welcoming the world. I've covered countless tournaments here in the United States, football tournaments, Copas America, Copa Oros, Gold Cups, all different types of tournaments where nations and clubs from all around the world have come to United States and discovered a country.

6:55Honestly, football has allowed me to discover my own country and understand different states and have Kansas City barbecue and compare it to Texas barbecue, which is different, by the way. And I think a lot of us are going to learn in the United States, but obviously from a macro geopolitical level, the situation wouldn't be more different. So I do have my concerns, but I want to wait until the tournament is actually happening to cast judgment on as to whether it's going to be a success or not, because we can't predict the future because it's so volatile at the moment. it is and and that probably nico is it is a fair way to look at where we're at because the situation changes i was going to say by the day but sometimes it changes by the hour here doesn't it but the fact remains that in my certainly in my working lifetime and probably in my lifetime i've never gone into a less than 100 days to a men's world cup with the host country at war Yeah, you're absolutely right.

8:03And I mean, I'm at the airport right now on my way out of the country. We've got a wedding with my wife at the weekend in Colombia. And just because of the conflict going on, the dispute in Congress over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, ESA, which is the Transportation Security Administration that kind of takes care of security at airports, has been massively understaffed. And what we've been dealing with, the non-TSA workers are massive lines at the airport, while TSA workers themselves have had to either quit jobs or go weeks on end without paychecks. And within the Department of Homeland Security is immigrations and custom enforcement.

8:45And just right now, me passing security, I had never seen ICE like this present at an airport. And obviously we know how the Trump administration has handled their deployment of ICE in states like Minnesota, for example, in Minneapolis, how it ended up being a nationwide debacle and debate. Then you throw in all of the visa issues with traveling fans. And I do echo your sentiment, Chappers, that to a large extent, it's very, very worrying. The grand party the World Cup should be feels like it's under threat. Manny, let me bring you in here with all your knowledge of Middle Eastern football here and what you cover for the World Service.

9:33Because we need to look at this from an Iranian perspective. but we also need to look at it from other countries here who have been dragged into this, don't we? But probably from the Iranian perspective first of all, Manning. Well, it depends which Iranian perspective you mean because one of the characteristics of being Iranian is that a lot of people have disagreements about pretty much everything. The official perspective we don't know because, as Rory says, there is a war. Even today, the Pakistani official who's been mediating between Trump and the Iranian leader says he can't get hold of them because they're all underground.

10:20And so that's a tiny glimpse into what's going on in Iran. Everyone there is in a fight for survival. There's abject terror, trauma. And into this environment comes the question, will Iran play in the World Cup? At the moment, I would have thought that nobody cares in Iran whether Iran, whether the national team play in the World Cup or not. Now, the hair was set running on the first day of the war by the Iranian Football Federation president who said, can't see it I don't think we can look forward to playing in the World Cup that was just his personal opinion but seen through the prism of the British media when the FA president says something like that it's big news then the sports minister who no one had heard of before including in Iran really echoed those thoughts and then he talked about going to play in Mexico which is a complete non-starter.

11:27Today, I saw a report on Reuters about the national team who are training in Turkey before playing a couple of friendlies. And those friendlies were described by someone, a media manager, I think it was, as being crucial preparation for the World Cup, which suggests that, you know, the idea is that they will go. And I've always thought they would go. So it's a big thing for a country to withdraw a national team. It hasn't really happened. I mean, the last time teams withdrew from the World Cup was 1950, and that was just because it was too far away. It's a big deal. I'm sure Iran will go to the World Cup.

12:12I mean, it's an opportunity for huge PR. I mean, if the current regime are in place, which looks like they will be, their flag will be raised on American soil, their anthem will be played on American soil, will be booed by the Iran fans who will go to those games. So, yes, I mean, the war has also disrupted hugely the preparation of countries like Jordan and Iraq. Jordan have had to cancel their farewell friendlies because they were due to play in this tournament with Iran, not against them. But that hasn't been able to take place in Amman because Iran can't fly there. So the Jordanians have gone to Turkey to join Iran, Nigeria and Costa Rica.

13:05So their preparations have been hit. Iraq's preparations have been hit for these playoffs. Their coach last couple of weeks ago, I spoke to him, he said, we're not going to be able to make it because the airspace is closed. But they have made it. So, yeah, this war is playing a massive role in how teams are preparing to play in the Football World Cup. Manny, first of all, I think you're absolutely right. Obviously, I can't imagine what people in Iran are going through, but my guess is the World Cup is nowhere near the front of their thoughts. But are you surprised or just sort of depressed by the total absence of any sort of leadership or control from FIFA here?

13:47Obviously, the situation is not their fault. We can't blame FIFA for what's happening in the Middle East. But it does strike me that 78 days out, you would be looking to the competition organiser for at least a little bit of guidance as to how the, you know, I realise it's a relatively unprecedented situation, but their total absence does, even by FIFA standards, sort of surprise me. I'm not surprised or depressed by that, really. FIFA haven't needed to say anything. I mean, you know, there are still six places that haven't been filled in the World Cup. They have spoken out about not moving Iran's games to Mexico.

14:23I mean, there's no point to doing that because if Iran finish in one of the places and qualify for the second round, then whichever place they finish in, they'll have to play in America. So there's no point in moving. And there'll be lawsuits and all kinds of things if they do that. I think FIFA have been quite sensible, really, just to wait and see what happens. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if in the end, absolutely nobody says anything, because the current situation, the default situation, is that Iran are going to the World Cup, and it may just be easier for everyone just to do that and not say anything, because the leadership of the country, whoever that is, is preoccupied with far greater things.

15:11What I would say, Nico, here, and Manny has mentioned, you know, if Iran were to get through, and I'll be honest, I haven't plotted a path for every country yet. There's plenty of other stuff going on at the moment. But if USA and Iran both finish runners-up in their groups, which is D and G, they play each other. And I know we're trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but they would have to look at how they deal with that already. There have to be contingency plans. Do you not think? The other thing is, it would take place in Texas on the 4th of July. If you think about it, this is almost like when UEFA, during their own draws, has to allocate.

15:56At first, they were separating Ukrainian and Russian teams. And then the Balkans is a whole issue. They're trying to avoid teams from Kosovo playing against teams from Serbia. And then the Albanians come into the mix. It's a whole mess that obviously just because of the history of Europe, UEFA has to deal with these all sorts of geopolitical entanglements. But there's precedent for the U.S. playing Iran. They were in the group stage at the last World Cup in Qatar. And there was actually a particular situation that happened because the U.S. men's national team on their official channels, Instagram, Twitter and whatnot, When they tweeted the group standings, they erased the Islamic Republic symbol from within the flag.

16:38So they posted the flag on their socials without that symbol that's very representative of the country. And it started a whole media firestorm before that match. Mind you, it was the last group stage match the U.S. needed to win. And it mounted this unnecessary pressure on the U.S. And it kind of ended up being anecdotal because the U.S. went on to the next round. They played the Netherlands and ended up losing. But yes, this is unprecedented, I would imagine. I'd have to go through every single World Cup matchup. But two teams that are actively at war playing against each other in the World Cup would be something that FIFA has never had to deal with, I would imagine.

17:20It's interesting, obviously, the really famous one, and Nito is quite right, They played in Qatar, but the really famous one was 98, which was the first time I think they'd ever faced at international level, certainly at competitive international level. It was, what, 20 years after the hostage crisis, after the Islamic Revolution. It was very much kind of seen as this flashpoint. I think they called it the silent war was the game. And reading about that in preparation for this, I won't pretend I was doing it kind of just casually, but it was interesting that in the build-up to it, Clinton, who was the president, kind of gave this speech in which he said that, you know, he hoped that sport could be a building block for the kind of normalization of relations.

18:00The rhetoric out of Iran from, I think that was Ayatollah Khamenei, was obviously less conciliatory. But the president at the time said something very similar. And although there were these strange little bits of choreography where the Iranian players weren't allowed to approach the American players to shake hands, it had to be the other way around. the Iranian players did present them with flowers there was this this attempt and it maybe sounds naive now but there was this attempt to use football as a way to say look this is sports and it is separate from politics in 2022 it was notable that none of that stuff happened it wasn't overtly political but it wasn't that same attempt to say this is different this is sport we are all kind of on the pitch all those other problems don't exist and if you look at where we are now Now, that is just not a great graph for the trajectory of the world, I would say.

18:51From 98, which was much closer to the hostage crisis, to now, we appear to have lost that ability to say that sport can be separate or at least should aim to be separate. And Manny, you mentioned the reaction to the Iranian anthem in the past from Iranian fans who have been present at the grounds. Even by being at the World Cup, it will put the footballers themselves and those connected to them in a difficult position, won't it? I mean, we saw what happened with the women's team recently at the Women's Asian Cup in Australia and refusing to sing the national anthem and then perceived threats that then came back their way.

19:36It puts the athletes themselves and the staff in a very, very difficult position. yeah but i mean that's pretty standard for iran games of the world cup i mean that game in france 98 that rory was talking about in the stands was toxic because there was this constant baiting between iran fans um with vehemently opposing political views and that wouldn't have been picked up by many people uh unless they were iranian but it was it was a horrible atmosphere And in fact, Mehdi Madhavigya, who scored Iran's second goal, said he absolutely hated playing in that match. So, you know, this is nothing new.

20:24And the Iran men, of course, were the first team not to sing the anthem before their first game against England at the last World Cup. And it was only after visitations from security people from the government who were all over the place in Ketai. It was just open house for them. They sort of half-heartedly sang before the second game, which they won. Yeah, the players will be under huge pressure. I mean, Saadar Asman, who is one of their best players, has been suspended from the squad because he posted a photo with the rulers of the United Arab Emirates on Instagram. And obviously, Iran are attacking the UAE.

21:14So he was kicked out of this squad. And all of them are under massive pressure and have to be careful what they say. So they choose the path of silence, really, and safety, and they don't say anything, or they're not allowed to say anything, as is the case in Turkey. But yeah, if they play in the United States, then what we'll have in the stands is the same, probably worse than what I've just described from France 98. And also in Iran, there is a question, I mean, this is all before the war. Who does this national team play for? Does it play for the people or does it play for the regime? And there are plenty of players who in the past have benefited from the regime.

22:05Mehdi Tarami, another striker, he did his military service with the Islamic Republic, with the IRGC, which is now so, so, so powerful in the country. So that is another question. I mean, I'll never forget after they lost to America at the World Cup. last time seeing countless videos of people celebrating on the streets of iran because the national team had lost it was just i've never seen anything like that uh belonging to you know regarding fans of any country in in the past never seen anything like it uh so there is also that to bear in mind in terms of how they're greeted by the the fans in the stance yeah man i was going to say that presumably i mean they play at least one game in la don't they which is is home to a huge iranian population and most of those i would guess obviously not not all but there will be an awful lot of dissidents or in second or third generation dissidents in in that audience and they will be the ones in the stands it will not be the case i wouldn't have thought that the the iranian diaspora in the states is pro re is automatically pro regime the issue was more likely to be between groups of Iranian fans as it was in 1998.

23:25Quite. I mean, the anti-Ragime, I mean, I wouldn't feel comfortable about putting a percentage on it, but a lot of them are pro-Rezal Pahavi, who's the son of the Shah and has been living in America. A lot of them are quite happy about this war, about Iran being attacked. They've been calling for a long time. And, yeah, I mean, I don't know what their reaction would be when they get into the stadium and they hear the current anthem and they'll see the players will have to sing. And how will that... Can you imagine, you know, you're at the World Cup and your own fans are booing the anthem and maybe they're booing you too.

24:20Manny, thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate that this evening from the BBC World Service, Manny Jasmie. We've got Nico with us as well. I don't mean this to sort of be an uncomfortable gear change, but we move from the very serious stuff and the world conflicts to the general preparations in the US. and every other day there'll be an article on disagreements between local authorities or the grounds or the owners of an NFL stadium about who's funding what and then ticket prices as well. Not everything has been resolved, has it, Nico, or has it? To a certain extent, it has. I think the fans' concern here in the United States is the tickets and the access to the tickets given that FIFA is selling them exclusively on their platform, right?

25:12Their whole idea was to take out the middleman, the scalpers, all of these people that end up making a lot of money off of a product that's not theirs. So FIFA created this very closed system where you can buy and sell tickets that are fluctuating in price. And it's called dynamic pricing. I mean, we see it in the US and I imagine around the world with hotels and airlines. And it's a quintessential American thing. And FIFA decided to take the world's game and use this very American system of buy and demand to make the most money off of their tickets and keep all of the revenue from the markup themselves.

25:54and more than anything, beyond all the administrative issues from the cities that I think at the end of the day, they'll manage to figure out there was a situation in Boston and Miami, but a lot of it is imagined negotiation tactics to kind of get your ducks in a row before all this begins in 78 days' time, right, Chapper? 78 days' time? 78, yeah. So more than anything, what I'm feeling, there's a desperation for tickets amongst all types of fans. I think the disappointment for the cities has been that FIFA have made it so difficult for them to stage events around the World Cup and get commercial money in for them.

26:34That's been a lot of the issue. There's a security bill that had to be passed, I think, in terms of$625 million for security costs that I think the federal government will now pay to the cities. That had been held up for a while. But we've seen in New York, certainly, I think in some of the other cities as well, they've had to cut back on a lot of the kind of fan festy stuff and look they'll be listening and they're charging rory they're charging for fan fests so the ones that are still going on usually they're free i remember in all the world cups that i've attended you can just kind of like walk in and it's yeah i mean in brazil it was on copacabana beach you would just walk onto the beach and there was these huge screens it was awesome and and i think there'll be a lot of in catar there was nobody in them from what i remember but yeah they often often depends on the venue in the country i would say yeah they made the mistake in guitar i think of putting them in a very hot country with in places where there was very little shade so i think people correctly decided to go to the suit that was the suit my memory of guitar is the suit was a gigantic fan fest even though it wasn't meant to be um but yeah they're not the idea is that they're free or certainly has previously been that they're free and there is this sense around the world cup that that fifa have decided to make as much money as possible for themselves off it and to be honest I think politically, there's a point, and look, it was only 78 days, so maybe time is running out for this to be a problem, but I wouldn't have thought the Trump administration would like the idea of FIFA coming into the US, keeping all the money, and then leaving again.

27:58That doesn't seem very Make America Great Again, if I'm completely honest. But FIFA thus far, it seems to have worked for them. They've been able to kind of bring fence. But that's what they do, though. That's what they do at tournaments. I mean, that's what the Olympics as well, isn't it? They have specific tax rules and so on and so forth that means they make their money and go again. That's right, isn't it? Yeah, I think this is a more extreme case because it partly does the pricing and partly because of the way that they've done the commercial deals for the city. So if you're Boston and you want to run a fan fest, the way in the States it would generally work is you get a corporate partner to sponsor that and you shove a load of New Balance advertising around it.

28:39But you can't do that because Adidas, I think, are a top-level FIFA sponsor. So you're not allowed to get any sponsorship from anybody who competes in the same field as Adidas. And given the number of FIFA sponsors, that rules out most fields by the end. So it's become very hard for the cities to put anything on, which is why, as Nico says, they will be charging prices for it. It feels like a very capitalist World Cup. and that has, I think it will probably affect the number of people who travel just because the cost of it is so extraordinary. Well, the cost, if I was just going to give you some indications, for one person, if you attended eight matches at this World Cup, one in each round, so all the way to the final, if you just went the lowest price range, it would cost you about just over five grand.

29:25If you went for the middle tier, eight and a half grand. and if you went for the most expensive tier, just shy of£12 ,500. Now, you say, Nico, that dynamic ticket pricing is very much an American model. The American people, American football fans, recoiling at those prices. When you say American football fans, let's just be specific. You're talking about the sport where it's 11 men versus 11 men. Yes, sorry. I want to make sure because the American football, Well, the pigskin, as we call it here, they're used to that, you know, the Super Bowl prices. And you mentioned those price ranges. That's exclusively just tickets, right?

30:06Imagine the whole dynamic pricing happens for airlines. Like, I invite you to get across from Inglewood, California, all the way to Atlanta, Georgia. It's not cheap, you know, like get from Miami to New York. And then the hotels, find a place to stay. The United States right now is an expensive country. I mean, a lot of politicians have been running their campaigns on affordability. It's going to be an extremely expensive World Cup. So I wonder, to be honest, it's incredible. All these traveling fans, I asked the same thing when, you know, my family is Argentinian. I have a lot of Argentinian heritage and I know how Argentines live and breathe football with their economy in tatters.

30:51Absolutely destroyed. They were able to find a way across the globe, go to Qatar en masse and celebrate their country winning a World Cup. Some people maybe never had seen Argentina win a World Cup. And even if they didn't have a penny, somehow they made it over. So I wonder if those same dynamics for a lot of a lot of these countries that are football mad, they'll be able to do it in the United States. This is the Football Daily Podcast with Mark Chapman. Hello, this is Matt Chorley's Urgent Questions, your daily dose of political mayhem from the heart of Westminster. Order, order. I call Matt Chorley.