Trump’s wish is coming true – and the safety of the World Cup is at risk

Let’s do it now one thing is clear. There is an international war going on, where missiles are being hit unpredictably in different parts of Asia and even in Europe.

A football tournament is not really the most important thing in the world now.

However, sports reflect the world around them. When the World Cup host USA makes a missile strike on one of the countries that survived the Games, the world is clearly not completely happy.

There have been strong messages from Iran that the country would boycott this summer’s World Cup. If, and most likely when, this happens, the decision would be historic.

A country that has reached the final tournament of the World Cup through the qualifiers has basically never refused a place in the competition before.

Some kind of there have certainly been refusals. There were no qualifiers for the first World Cup in history. All member countries of the international football association Fifa were invited to the tournament. Finland was also among those invited, but like many other countries, did not go.

In the end, only 13 countries participated in the Games in Uruguay. Disappointed by this, Uruguay, which won the championship, did not go to the next Games in 1934.

India, on the other hand, would have made it to the 1950 World Cup when all the other Asian countries that signed up for the qualifiers gave up. It has later been claimed that India refused to go to the tournament because playing barefoot was prohibited. However, the real reason was that the costs of the trip to the competition were estimated to be too high in the country.

The qualifiers for the 1966 World Cup saw a mass boycott, when African countries, disappointed with their place quota, left the qualifiers completely unplayed. There was reason to be dissatisfied, because Fifa had granted Africa, Asia and Oceania only one joint place.

The closest thing to a purely political boycott was in the further qualifiers of the 1974 Games, where the Soviet Union and Chile met. The opening part in Moscow ended in a 0–0 draw. After this, the Soviet Union refused to travel to play in Chile in protest Augusto Pinochetin to the dictatorship. Chile arrived on the field without an opponent and scored one shot on an empty net.

After that, the referee Erich Linemayr blew the match over. In the end, Chile was adjudged the winner with a score of 2–0.

In addition, countries have been removed from the final tournament. This happened, for example, to Yugoslavia, which was going through a civil war, at the European Championships in 1992.

The case of Iran however, differs from all others. The team had passed the qualifiers, received a place in the competition and was drawn into the first group.

Then the United States of the Games, in which Iran was supposed to play all three of its opening group matches, attacked Iran with Israel.

President Donald Trump already made it clear in the arrangements for the draw event that he did not want Iran in the games. Iran applied for visas for seven people for the event. Three of the applications were rejected.

Those who arrived at the scene saw how the president of Fifa Gianni Infantino presented Trump with the FIFA Peace Prize. Infantino justified the award by Trump’s “unwavering actions to promote peace.”

Since receiving the award, Trump has attacked Venezuela and Iran.

The US did not want Iran in the World Cup. The country had already made it clear before the attacks that, for example, Iranian fans or some of the team’s background personnel would not get visas for the World Cup.

That’s why a race boycott would sound mostly like a nice bonus to Trump. However, you should be careful what you wish for in these matters. The World Cup has been the target of terrorist plans before.

Therefore, a boycott of Iran would not improve the security of the World Cup, but would weaken it.