The FIFA World Cup will take place in North America this summer, and Iran will play at least three games in the United States. The U.S. government and the Iranian diaspora should not waste this opportunity, especially because two of Iran’s three games will be in southern California, where a half-million Iranian Americans reside. Iran will play New Zealand on June 15, 2026, and Belgium on June 21 in greater Los Angeles, home to the largest Iranian diaspora.
Soccer has a special place in Iran. It is the only national pastime not fully co-opted by the regime, and it has become the only mass gathering that the regime does not organize or control. For example, soon after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, state television accidently broadcast an anti-Palestinian chant caught on stadium’s microphones after the regime displayed a Palestinian flag. The national team, still selected largely by merit, is the only national entity not purged of dissidents. During the 2022 protests, many of the leading anti-regime voices were active and retired players. And lastly, for the first decades of the Islamic Republic, soccer was the only enjoyable, indigenous entertainment in Iran, after Islamic orthodoxy suppressed cinema, television, and music.
The national team, still selected largely by merit, is the only national entity not purged of dissidents.
The most significant piece of evidence for the importance of soccer is that, despite U.S. strikes against Iran in June, the Islamic Republic will not boycott the games in the United States; it cannot afford the public backlash. Islamic Republic officials had hoped to avoid playing in the United States and instead play in Mexico, but the FIFA draw has dashed those regime hopes.
During the 2022 tournament in Qatar and in the middle of nationwide protests, the regime sent its own people to support the regime from the stands. At Iran’s request, Qatar did not allow fans to bring in the pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flag into the stadia. Regime mercenaries gave interviews to journalists outside the venues, defending the conditions in Iran.
The United States and the Iranian diaspora must prevent the same outcome. Most ethnic Iranians in the United States oppose the Islamic Republic; they can fill the stadium many times over. Few anti-regime Iranians, meanwhile, can afford to travel to the United States. The average annual income is approximately $3,000 per household; only the regime’s own people can afford a vacation in California. Likewise, too many Iranians in Europe and Canada are what Iranians call saderati, exported by the regime, who defend the status quo in Iran to foreign media and governments. No fan using an Islamic Republic passport should enter the United States. This will come at the expense of many anti-regime Iranians in Europe and Canada.
The diaspora also should mobilize. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) will rally its supporters to gather outside the venues. They will not explicitly support the regime; NIAC has always focused more on attacking those who are anti-regime than it has on publicly supporting the regime. Journalists will hear a lot of denunciations of the sanctions policy and how it hurts the average Iranian, condemnations of Israel, and talking points that the United States should not meddle in internal Iranian affairs, and that Iranians should bring change on their own.
These are contradictory to the views of Iranian Americans. The Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA), the largest Iranian American organization despite NIAC’s unsourced claims to the contrary, conducts an annual survey. It found only 22 percent of the diaspora in the United States approve of lifting sanctions. Forty-four percent endorse regime change as a policy, and 41 percent favor supporting democracy and human rights; the number totals more than 100 percent because respondents could choose two options from the provided menu.
Anti-regime protests during domestic games have been a recurring problem for the regime.
Iranian American groups such as PAAIA and the National Union for Democracy in Iran should coordinate a message and mobilize their members to denounce the Islamic Republic and be the voice of the Iranians in Iran, asking democratic governments to support the democracy movement in Iran and increase the pressure on the Islamic Republic.
Anti-regime protests during domestic games have been a recurring problem for the regime, and the state TV often cuts the sound; it also benefited from having its own people as cameramen to avoid showing the crowd. It will be both controversial and telling to cut the sound of the national team game during the quadrennial World Cup.
Fans attending the games should coordinate anti-regime chants throughout the event. All broadcasters receive the same video and audio feed, and chants, which are a major part of soccer culture, reach the audience at home via stadium microphones. Fans should ensure that their words, in English and Persian, are heard by the world, and in Iran. This will also create a headache for the state television broadcasting the games. All of them should carry the Lion and Sun flags and anti-regime banners. The cameras ought to show these as often as possible.
World Cup tickets are difficult to acquire, and these organizations should ensure that even the members who cannot attend these games still appear outside the stadium, carrying the Lion and the Sun flag. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the diaspora should independently transform Iran’s two Los Angeles games into an anti-regime party, and invite all Iranians—both in the diaspora and those still in Iran—to join in.
