Iran says ticket allocation for World Cup withdrawn days before tournament

Iranian football fans gave their players a send-off in Tehran last week. (Reuters: Majid Asgaripour/WANA )

Iran's football federation (FFIRI) says its ticket allocation for the FIFA World Cup has been pulled just days before the tournament kicks off.

The FFIRI said the 8 per cent quota of tickets allocated to Iran has been revoked meaning "there is no possibility to distribute tickets to fans through the Federation", multiple Iranian news agencies said.

"This is despite the fact that many Iranian football fans, relying on the officially announced process, had already made the necessary plans to attend the matches," the FFIRI added in a statement.

"There is no possibility of providing even a single ticket to the national team fans through the Federation," Fars reported, citing the Iranian football federation.

Each participating federation at the World Cup receives 8% of the tickets for each of their matches to be allocated to fans according to their own criteria.

Iran's team arrived in Tijuana, Mexico early on Sunday, ahead of their three matches scheduled in the US.

Iran's football team arrived in Tijuana on Sunday. (Reuters: Victor Medina)

Coach Amir Ghalenoei told FIFA that the team ideally would have arrived in Tijuana last week in order to adapt to the time difference.

"Normally, in tournaments like this, humanitarian and ethical considerations should come before technical matters, and I believe those considerations were not extended to us," he said after arriving at Tijuana airport.

Iranian defender Ehsan Hajsafi said the team has suffered "very difficult circumstances".

The ticket allocation being withdrawn comes just days after the US awarded visas to all the Iranian players on Friday.

For months, the Iranian team had issues getting their visas approved, which they were just 10 days before their first match.

Several members of the Iranian squad were not given visas, including "key managerial and administrative members", according to Iran's football federation.

Iran's ambassador in Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh said 15 of the 70 members of the party who arrived in Tijuana on Sunday had not been given visas to enter the US.

An official with the US State Department said the Trump administration had issued "the visas necessary for Iran to compete in the World Cup, including for athletes and necessary support staff".

The official added: "We will not allow the Iranian team to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the U.S. under false pretences."