The Absurd World Cup

It’s hard to imagine a more fraught combination for what was supposed to be a fun Friday night: Seattle’s Pride celebration will feature a World Cup match on June 26 between Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, and Egypt, where homosexual activity is punishable by up to three years in prison. When FIFA’s schedulers announced the Pride Match pairing after December’s draw, it felt a little like a sick joke. The Egyptian Football Association has said it will reject “in absolute terms” any signs or symbols of gay pride. Mehdi Taj, the head of the Iranian football federation, told news agencies that the game assignment was an “irrational move,” and just about everyone was, for once, on Iran’s side.Iran’s role in the entire tournament has since become a much thornier dilemma: Whether the country will participate at all will remain in doubt until 11 men take the field for their opening game against New Zealand, scheduled for June 15 in Los Angeles. In March, after the United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s sports minister said that the country “was not in a position to participate in a World Cup.” Iran then petitioned FIFA to move its group-stage games to Mexico, but that plea was rejected. Late last month, Iran moved its base camp from Tucson to Tijuana. FIFA brokered the deal after the U.S. balked at hosting the Iranians for extended periods.“Football unites the world,” Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s president, likes to say, ignoring the fact that the U.S. keeps bombing Iran, and that fans from Iran, Iraq, Haiti, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast are still subject to President Trump’s full or partial travel bans. An Ebola outbreak has also threatened the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s participation. Less than a week out from the biggest men’s World Cup in history, Infantino’s easy rhetoric is proving no match for the world’s more complicated realities.At FIFA’s annual congress, held in April in Vancouver, delegates from 210 countries were re