Maxime Ponsot
Published on
Set to take place in North America, the 2026 FIFA World Cup continues to attract political attention from the Trump administration. Paolo Zampolli, a close associate of the U.S. president, suggests replacing Iran with Italy for the global football event that will be held in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
“I confirm suggesting to [Donald] Trump and [Gianni] Infantino that Italy replaces Iran in the World Cup,” he said, as reported by the British newspaper Financial Times and cited by our French colleagues at Eurosport.
However, the matter seemed settled following Gianni Infantino‘s statements, the president of FIFA (who doesn’t hesitate to be seen regularly with Donald Trump), a week ago. “Iran will come, that’s for sure,” he had said during a conference organized by the television channel CNBC in Washington. He had also visited the Iranian team during a training camp in Antalya, Turkey at the end of March, and attended a friendly match of the team.
“We hope that at this point [the start of the competition on June 11, editor’s note], the situation will be peaceful, which would really help. […] But Iran must come, they represent their people, they have qualified, the players want to play.”
But the U.S. special envoy sees it differently. “I am Italian by birth, and it would be a dream to see the Nazionale in a tournament organized in the United States. With four titles, they have the credentials to justify their presence,” Paolo Zampolli opined, without any sporting consideration.
The Azzurri have been absent from the World Cup for over ten years
Because this is not about merit. Recall that the Squadra Azzurra has not participated in a World Cup since 2014. They have thus missed two editions (soon to be three). This is simply because each time, they have failed to qualify for the prestigious competition. Despite winning the UEFA European Championship in the meantime (Italy clinched the title in 2021 but did not defend it in 2024, which was won by Spain).
Several underwhelming performances in the qualifying group stage or playoff matches, each of which has frustrated the country, have led the Italian team to sit out the last few World Cups. During the 2022 qualifiers, they were shockingly defeated in the semifinals by the modest North Macedonian team. In 2026, they were eliminated in the playoff finals on penalties by Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On the other hand, following the schedule, Iran is set to play their three group matches in the United States (in Los Angeles against New Zealand and Belgium, and in Seattle against Egypt). Their tournament basecamp is expected to be in Tucson, Arizona.
Since the end of February, Iran had mentioned a “boycott” of the competition, before asking FIFA to move their matches to Mexico—which the world governing body rejected. The Sports Minister mentioned, “Since this corrupt government killed our leader, we have no intention of participating in the World Cup,” at the time.
A political subtext
The idea put forward by Paolo Zampolli is clearly motivated by the international context of the Middle East war, a conflict initiated by the United States and Israel. This suggestion, seemingly out of the blue, would supposedly aim to ease tensions between the United States and Italy, according to the Financial Times.
Recently, disagreements have arisen between the leaders of the two countries, Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni. The cause was criticisms, if not attacks, by the U.S. president on Pope Léon XIV. These remarks did not sit well with the Italian Prime Minister, who expressed her displeasure.
However, this did not deter the American head of state, who preferred to escalate by directly targeting the Italian government head. “I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” Donald Trump lashed out on April 14 in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
His issue: he is “shocked” by the lack of Italian (and more generally European) involvement in the war in Iran. This criticism was also directed at France, accused of being “very uncooperative,” and just like during the Iraq war at the turn of the century, refusing to follow the United States, while Spain outright opposed it.
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