Iran arrive at World Cup with swipe at US over attack on school

Iran’s World Cup team arrived in Mexico wearing lapel pins highlighting the victims of a deadly missile strike on a school at the start of the war with the United States.

The players wore gold-coloured pins with the number “168” on their jackets when getting off their plane in Tijuana, Mexico. 

It referred to the people killed, most of them children, when a missile attack on February 28 hit the school in Minab in southern Iran.

Iran’s embassy in Hungary on Monday noted the pins in a social media post with a reference to Minab.

The strike on the school, which was close to a Revolutionary Guard base, was previously memorialised by the Iran team before a warm-up game in March in Antalya, Turkey. Players held up pink and purple school backpacks while their national anthem played.

Neither the United States nor Israel has accepted responsibility for the attack on the school, which has been staunchly criticised by the United Nations and human rights groups. The US military is investigating and has said it would never target civilians.

The Iran delegation flew on a private jet from Antalya to Tijuana on Saturday, after a late change of plans two weeks ago to use Mexico as a training base instead of Tucson, Arizona.

Iran are preparing to play all three of their group-stage games in the US, which has delayed processing visas for players and has denied some to members of the delegation who have ties to the Revolutionary Guard.

However, it is unclear when the Iran team will be allowed to enter the US ahead of their June 15 opening game in Inglewood near Los Angeles, to face New Zealand.

Iran are due to return to Tijuana between games, and go back to Inglewood on June 21 to play Belgium, then head to Seattle to face Egypt on June 26.

Iran and the US could meet in the round of 32 on July 3 at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium in Arlington, Texas, if both teams come second in their groups.