Iran’s football federation said on May 24 that FIFA had approved moving the country’s World Cup training base from the United States to Mexico, a shift driven by security concerns linked to the war in the Middle East.

BBC Sport reported that federation president Mehdi Taj said Iran would now be based in Tijuana, on the Mexican border, although the change had not yet been independently confirmed by FIFA at the time of the report. Iran had originally been assigned Tucson, Arizona, as its base camp for the 2026 tournament.

The relocation matters because Iran’s World Cup schedule already places it in US cities. The BBC said Iran is due to play New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles and Egypt in Seattle. A change in training base does not alter the match calendar, but it can affect travel, security planning and team logistics in the months before a major international tournament.

Taj said the federation had held meetings with FIFA and World Cup officials in Istanbul and had also taken part in a webinar with FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafstrom in Tehran. He said that all team base camps must be approved by FIFA and that Iran’s request had been accepted after those talks.

The broader context is one of uncertainty over Iran’s participation environment because of the war. The report said the conflict and related security concerns had created doubts around logistics, even though Iran was already preparing at a training camp in Turkey. The shift from Arizona to Tijuana would keep the team within the North American tournament footprint while moving its preparation base away from US soil.

The report did not say whether FIFA had issued a formal public statement by the time it was published. It also did not describe any changes to Iran’s actual group-stage fixtures. Still, the approval marks an unusual adjustment to World Cup planning that reflects how geopolitical tensions can reach deep into sporting arrangements.

The change also reflects how hosting arrangements in global sport can become entangled with geopolitics well before a tournament begins. Iran’s case is unusual because the team is expected to play matches in the United States, but the report suggests that its preparation base may now sit across the border in Mexico. That kind of compromise may help solve immediate security concerns while keeping the team within reach of its schedule.

FIFA’s eventual public confirmation would matter because base camps are not just symbolic; they determine training routines, travel planning and the daily environment for players and staff. For Iran, the reported approval is therefore more than a logistical tweak. It is an early indication that the war is already shaping the mechanics of one of the world’s biggest sporting events.