{"id":18433,"date":"2026-04-23T22:14:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edumarkng.com\/news\/rubio-denies-us-trying-to-exclude-iran-players-from-world-cup\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T22:14:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:14:46","slug":"rubio-denies-us-trying-to-exclude-iran-players-from-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edumarkng.com\/news\/rubio-denies-us-trying-to-exclude-iran-players-from-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio denies US trying to exclude Iran players from World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rubio<\/div>

Rubio denies US trying to exclude Iran players from World Cup, <\/p>\n

The United States will not exclude Iran from the World Cup tournament it is hosting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday, after an official mused about replacing war-battered Iran with Italy, which did not qualify.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with Iran, it would be not their athletes. It would be some of the other people that we want to bring with them,\u201d Rubio told reporters, denying Washington had asked the Iranian team not to come.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n

The post Rubio denies US trying to exclude Iran players from World Cup<\/a> appeared first on Vanguard News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

, <\/p>\n

The United States will not exclude Iran from the World Cup tournament it is hosting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday, after an official mused about replacing war-battered Iran with Italy, which did not qualify.<\/p>\n

The post Rubio denies US trying to exclude Iran players from World Cup<\/a> appeared first on Vanguard News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

, , Henry Oduah, {authorlink},, , Vanguard News, April 23, 2026, 10:14 pm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rubio denies US trying to exclude Iran players from World Cup, The United States will not exclude Iran from the World Cup tournament it is hosting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday, after an official mused about replacing war-battered Iran with Italy, which did not qualify. \u201cThe problem with Iran, it would be not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanguardngr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Marco-Rubio-1024x614.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1930],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-news-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nRubio denies US trying to exclude Iran players from World Cup - 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