Revolutionary Guard claim is ‘outright lie’, says Iran’s football federation

US claims that an individual with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tried to join the Iran team’s flight to the United States on Saturday are “fabricated and entirely baseless allegations”, the country’s football federation (FFIRI) has said.

Markwayne Mullin, the US Homeland Security Secretary, told Fox News on Sunday that someone under the guise of being the Iranian federation (FFIRI) president tried to board the team’s flight to Los Angeles from Mexico for Sunday’s World Cup match against Belgium, but was prevented from doing so.

Mullin did not name the man but said he had “direct ties” to the IRGC, something the FFIRI has rejected outright. The FFIRI’s president is Mehdi Taj.

“The FFIRI strongly condemns the remarks made by Markwayne Mullin, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, regarding the president of the Iranian football federation and members of the official national team delegation, and considers them to be a series of false, fabricated, and entirely baseless allegations,” the federation said in a statement.

“The claim that an official representative of the Iranian football federation attempted to board a flight to enter the United States yesterday and was prevented from doing so is an outright and undeniable lie. This claim is so unfounded that those who made it are well aware that such an incident never occurred in the first place.

“It is regrettable that a senior US official has resorted to spreading false statements and misinformation in order to justify restrictions imposed on members of the Iranian national team delegation.

“When a specific, verifiable, and individually targeted allegation is made and that allegation is fundamentally false, it naturally calls into question the credibility of the other accusations as well.”