\n
TEHRAN – The Italian sports minister, Andrea Abodi, has described a proposal for his country to replace Iran at the World Cup as \u201cnot appropriate\u201d, rejecting any idea that the Azzurri will be granted a last-minute berth at this summer\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday it emerged that Paolo Zampolli, a special envoy to Donald Trump, had suggested Italy should be fast-tracked to the World Cup despite their shock defeat by Bosnia and Herzegovina in last month\u2019s playoffs. Zampolli proposed the four-time winners Italy replace Iran and said they would \u201chave the pedigree to justify their inclusion\u201d. But Abodi said football\u2019s showpiece tournament should remain meritocratic.<\/p>\n
\u201cItaly\u2019s possible requalification for the 2026 World Cup, which U.S. president Donald Trump\u2019s envoy, Paolo Zampolli, has reportedly proposed to FIFA, is firstly not possible, and secondly not appropriate,\u201d Abodi told Sky News. \u201cI don\u2019t know what comes first. Qualification is on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s participation has been the subject of speculation owing to the war with the U.S. and Israel. They are due to play two group games in Los Angeles and one in Seattle. Although they had floated moving their matches to the co-hosts Mexico, that idea appears a nonstarter. They have not requested to withdraw from the tournament and last month the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, said they \u201cwill be at the World Cup\u201d.<\/p>\n
Should Iran\u2019s status change there is no obvious logic for Italy to replace them. The United Arab Emirates, the next-highest-ranked Asian country not to have qualified, are considered their likeliest potential replacements.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEHRAN – The Italian sports minister, Andrea Abodi, has described a proposal for his country to replace Iran at the World Cup as \u201cnot appropriate\u201d, rejecting any idea that the Azzurri will be granted a last-minute berth at this summer\u2019s tournament. On Wednesday it emerged that Paolo Zampolli, a special envoy to Donald Trump, had …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-37237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamsonews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/en.hamsonews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5971459.jpg\")
<\/p>\n