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Arriving in the U.S. from Belgium to cover the World Cup, one overarching controversy stood out from the Iran war, visas and commercial exploitation: Should Blue Light News call the sport football or soccer?
Our style guide entry — “The worldwide sport should be referred to as football in Europe and soccer in the U.S. In European copy, refer to American football for the different U.S. sport played in the NFL” — didn’t end the debate.
Ultimately, America won the internal argument (quelle surprise!) and we’ll be calling it soccer for the next five weeks, despite FIFA’s name literally having the word football in it.
Lucky, really, that it’s not the Fédération Internationale de “Soccer“ Association — as that would have sparked some confusion about which FISA exactly we were talking about in the newsroom this summer. Surveillance, section 702 and Bill Pulte? Or the low block, gegenpressing and Gianni Infantino?
DALLAS — Andrew Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s point person on the 2026 World Cup, said allowing Iran’s national team to enter the U.S. a day before its matches is an example of the administration being nice.
“We want them to be able to compete,” Giuliani said in an interview Sunday in Dallas. “Even just coming in the day before the match, I think is another example of the goodwill gesture to the team.” He said 31 Iranian players and the team’s coaches have received visas and that the arrangements “should not affect the integrity of the team.”
The comments come after Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, told Blue Light News that Iran’s presence in the U.S. for the World Cup should be read as a positive gesture from his country, as Tehran and Washington inch toward an agreement on ending the war that began in late February.
The Iranian team is traveling to the U.S. today from Tijuana, Mexico, where it moved its pre-tournament training camp from Tucson, Arizona, in light of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Giuliani described the move as the “best solution for all parties involved,” noting that Tijuana remains a short flight from host cities including Los Angeles and Seattle, where Iran will play its group stage matches.
“That was a discussion from the top of [the] U.S. government, and with FIFA as well,” Giuliani said.The possibility of a politically charged matchup remains on the horizon: If the U.S. and Iran both place second in their respective groups, they will play each other on July 3 in the round of 32 in Dallas.
While defending Trump’s recent military actions against Iran, Giuliani also framed the tournament as a potential opportunity for sports diplomacy.
“This is a great moment, I think, for freedom-loving Iranians [and] freedom-loving Iranian Americans to be able to celebrate their soccer team coming to the United States and enjoy that, and look for the freedoms that can exist in Iran, right?” Giuliani said. “This can be one of those moments when you talk about sports diplomacy.”
EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey — During the World Cup, FIFA officials, law enforcement agencies and transit planners across New York and New Jersey will be keeping an eye on things from a constellation of command centers and control rooms.
The sites — spread from Miami to Trenton, New Jersey to Brooklyn — will house a small army of public officials ready to respond to whatever pops up during eight matches being played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The number of distinct command or operations centers that will be in use is almost comical: The New Jersey State Police, the New York Police Department, multiple transit and transportation agencies in New York and New Jersey, Amtrak and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey all have their own spot on the map to work out of. Some these are permanent control rooms where officials are used to working in front of huge screens to monitor video and data feeds. Others are temporary or specific to the tournament: There’s an operations center near the entrance to MetLife Stadium that the host committee and others are using and FIFA has an operations center in Miami.
But each has a distinct function and some will be staffed by officials from other agencies to help with coordination. During the World Cup, a command center in Trenton is the big dog.
“At the end of the day, though, they all report in to the larger command center, which is the ACC, the area command center, which looks at the overall region, the impacts to the region for any events, the asset allocation at different sites,” said Lt. Col. David Sierotowicz, the deputy superintendent of the New Jersey State Police and World Cup incident commander.
Before the first match here on Saturday, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill paid a visit to officials at an operations center on an elevated platform in the MetLife parking lot. After Brazil and Morocco battled to a draw and the sun had set, one of her top transit advisers could still be seen looking out over winnowing crowds boarding buses and trains to go home.
And for at least part of the summer there will be yet another command center: Over July 4 weekend, when President Donald Trump is expected in town for a massive parade of warships and a military airshow, there will be a popup command center run by the federal government at Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan.
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