Iranian LAs see hope, unity at SoFi Stadium World Cup match

Iran's World Cup team arrived in Tijuana last week with gold pins on their jackets to honor the 168 victims, most of them schoolgirls, who died in a February 28 US missile attack on a primary school in southern Iran at the start of the war.

The World Cup started last week as the war in the Middle East continues, and Iran will open the game against New Zealand on Monday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. It is worth noting that the game will take place in the Los Angeles area, which is home to many Iranians outside of Iran.

While Iran will play in the US, its players will not be allowed to live here. The team moved its training base from Tucson to Tijuana last month due to visa restrictions and other travel restrictions imposed by the Trump administration.

All 26 Iranian players have been granted playing visas, but will be forced to leave Mexico. Several delegation officials were denied their visas at the last minute, and more than a dozen members of the Iranian delegation – most of them executives, managers and technical staff – do not have permission to enter the US.

The State Department said in a statement to ESPN that it had issued the “required visas” and suggested that the Iranian delegation “could abuse this program to smuggle terrorists into the United States.”

The Iranian Football Federation says the ban on visas for key personnel is political interference and violates the assurances the US made in 2018 to protect World Cup hosting rights.

FIFA says it has no authority over the maintenance of the host country's borders and cannot pass the US. But when Indonesian government officials said they would ban Israeli players and officials from participating in the U20 World Cup in 2023, FIFA made an accommodation for the tournament to be held in Argentina, where Israel finished third.

The United States is the first country in the history of the World Cup to be in the qualifying battle for the tournament. As a result, the mood in the Iranian community in Southern California, already tense and rife with political divisions, can be blamed.

Iran has played in the US just once, in January 2000, when they drew 1-1 with the Americans. Because the countries had no formal diplomatic ties, it took months of negotiations to arrange the match, and the Iranians needed special exemptions from fingerprints and airport security.

Iran could have more success on Monday. Ranked 21st in the world, it is no stranger to the World Cup. They have won their last four contests and five of their last six, although they have won just two of those contests. And while it has never made it out of the group stage, it came close four years ago when a 1-0 loss to the US sent the team home.

This year, if the US and Iran make it out of the first round and finish second in their respective groups, they could face each other in a match in Dallas on July 3.

In recent days, Shaheen Ferdowsi, owner of West Hollywood's Meymuni Cafe, has been busy preparing for a watch party at the store that will host Monday's game and installing what she described as a “funny” flat-screen TV.

Ferdowsi, 31, said it was appropriate for a modern Persian food store to bring the community together during this difficult time. After all, he notes, Meymuni in Persian means “party.”

“As Iranians, we have been through enough this year,” Ferdowsi said.

Alireza Jahanbakhsh from Iran arrives with his teammates in Tijuana for the World Cup.

(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

With two of the three Iranian team games at SoFi, some staunch opponents of the Iranian government may oppose it, experts say. Some may avoid the game altogether, seeing the party as a replacement for the government they are fleeing. Still others hope it will be a moment of unity and love for LA's Iranian community.

Some suppliers in the area balked at the idea of ​​hosting a viewing party, Ferdowsi said. He said he avoids getting involved in national politics. He said this game “transcends” division.

“There are painful and complicated things that are happening, but from my very small user perspective, the World Cup itself is very exciting and our people come here, a place where there are many Iranians outside of Iran,” said Ferdowsi. “Following a group can bring people together.”

As Iranian American families challenge the power of the two countries in the war they are taking out on the field, they are also fighting the conflicts that have gathered on their screens.

A vocal section of the diaspora supported the campaign to install Reza Pahlavi, the exiled prince and son of the late shah, as Iran's leader. That group supported the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US-Israeli attack on the first day of the war, and the conflict that followed.

In that group, however, some have become wary of the killings and violent speeches of President Trump. A March poll commissioned by the National Iranian American Council showed that nearly two-thirds of Iranian Americans oppose the war.

Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology at UCLA who has studied the Iranian diaspora, said some Iranian fanatics were disillusioned and disillusioned when the war's first goal of regime change failed.

“Cleavages [in the Iranian community] it may not be as difficult and divisive as it used to be,” said Harris.

Still, he said, those who see the team as a symbol of the Iranian government may feel that watching the show is inappropriate. FIFA's plan to ban Iran's pre-1979 revolution flag, emblazoned with a lion and a rising sun associated with those who support Pahlavi and a return to the monarchy, may spark some protests, Harris said, but he doubts there will be a strong demonstration, the movement has been stripped of power.

A passerby is shown in the window of the Eshgh gallery, which has a statue supporting Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince and son of the late shah, near Westwood Boulevard.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)

Ashkan Karmi, 35, an Anaheim resident and longtime Iranian soccer fan, said he always makes a point to support Iranian teams when he comes to California. He has attended all of Iran's team's games at the Volleyball Nations League tournament in Anaheim in 2023 and paid $450 for his ticket to Monday's game at SoFi Stadium.

The tickets were too expensive for his friends, but he took them out and will go alone. He plans to bring a lion and sun flag, even though he opposes the US-Israeli war, to show that he also opposes the Iranian government, but he expects to be turned away.

Karmi, who asked to be identified only by his first and middle names for fear of facing problems when he tries to visit Iran in the future, said the game is an opportunity to “reconnect with this country and the people.”

As a child there, he attended football games, but has not been back in 18 years. Now you have family members who “can't sleep well at night” during the US and Israeli strikes, but you know who will be watching the game.

He is looking forward to watching midfielder Mehdi Ghayedi, who has speed and shows great technical skill, he said.

For Christina Lila Wilson, 39, who spent her summers in West LA with Iranian relatives until she immigrated as a child, the American treatment of the group is antithetical to her culture. He represents a rare point of agreement for his family, which is deeply divided over US intervention in Iran.

“In Iran, hospitality is like an active duty and honor. Even if your greatest enemy is right next to you, you risk your life to protect him,” said Wilson. “That's why I don't allow it [the players] sleeping after playing is a big insult and it feels wrong, because the players pay more than they can afford.”

Wilson's uncles, cousins ​​and other relatives plan to gather at his parents' home in Westwood to watch the game. His family is a microcosm of the diaspora, he said, with his mother, an Iranian Christian, and other relatives of various faiths, including Baha'i, Zoroastrian, Muslim and Sufi expressions.

He expects arguments to break out, as has happened in previous gatherings. Recently, a cousin who has a lion and sun flag hanging prominently in his home clashed with his uncle, who supports a triangular flag that has nothing but the symbol of the pre-revolutionary flag or the Islamic message of the current flag.

He hopes that the game will serve as a forum for communication and that his community will find another way to vent their anger.

“We feel the need to humanize the Iranian people because Americans are used to seeing all those countries as numbers or wasteland or desert, and that makes us numb to what's going on there,” Wilson said. “Citizens paid the price with their lives, that's why we want to support. The group is a symbol of Iran's spiritual stability.”