DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran has decided to boycott the 2026 World Cup draw in Washington next week because the U.S. denied visas to members of its delegation, the state-run IRNA news agency reported on Friday.
The agency quoted Iranian soccer federation spokesman Amir-Mahdi Alavi as saying that officials faced visa obstacles that go beyond sports considerations.
There was no immediate comment from the White House.
Alavi said the federation had reached out to FIFA and hoped it could help resolve the issue. Soccer's ruling body didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
President Donald Trump’s administration announced in June a travel ban on citizens from 12 countries including Iran. The list also included Haiti, which last week qualified for the World Cup.
Exemptions, however, were promised for “any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the secretary of state.”
It is unclear whether the exemptions also apply to the World Cup draw, which takes place on Dec. 5 at the Kennedy Center.
The Iranian delegation would have been expected to be led by its soccer federation president Mehdi Taj, one of the most senior officials in Asian soccer and a member of two FIFA committees that have oversight of the World Cup.
He is one of the vice presidents of the Asian Football Confederation and a member of FIFA panels with responsibility for the ruling body’s competitions, plus men’s national team soccer in general.
A record 48 teams will participate in the June 11-July 19 World Cup co-hosted by the the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Trionda, a giant replica of the official ball for the FIFA Wold Cup 2026 is displayed in Zurich, Switzerland, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (Claudio Thoma/Keystone via AP)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The daughter-in-law of race team owner Joe Gibbs gave emotional testimony Friday in the federal antitrust case against NASCAR about the chaotic six-hour period in which teams had to sign an extension on a new revenue model or forfeit their charters.
“The document was something in business you would never sign,” said Heather Gibbs, who is also a licensed real estate agent. “It was like a gun to your head: if you don't sign, you have nothing.”
Charters are the equivalent of the franchise model used in other sports and in NASCAR it guarantees every chartered car a spot in all 38 races, plus a defined payout from the stock car series. The system was created in 2016, and during the two-plus years of bitter negotiations on an extension teams begged for the renewable charters to be made permanent for revenue stability.
When NASCAR refused to make them permanent and gave the teams six hours in September 2024 to sign the 112-page extension, 23XI and Front Row Motorsports were the only two organizations out of 15 to refuse. They instead filed the antitrust suit that opened this week.
23XI is owned by retired NBA great Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Front Row is owned by fast food franchiser Bob Jenkins. They allege the top motorsports series in the United States is a monopolistic bully.
Jordan was called to the witness stand Friday afternoon with U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell wryly noting the courtroom and an overflow room nearby with a video feed were packed.
Heather Gibbs became co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing the day after her husband, Coy, unexpectedly died in his sleep the same night their son, Ty, won NASCAR's second-tier Xfinity Series championship in 2022. Coy Gibbs had moved into a leadership role with JGR following the death of his older brother, J.D., in 2019.
Because Gibbs had lost both his sons and had built the team as a legacy for his family, his daughter-in-law took an active role in the organization and personally participated in negotiations for the 2025 charter extensions. She expressed her dissatisfaction with NASCAR's refusal to make the charters permanent in a letter she sent to NASCAR leadership in May 2024.
When NASCAR made its final offer at 6 p.m. on a Friday night with just hours to sign, the agreement did not include permanent charters. Gibbs testified the organization was devastated.
“Everything was going so fast, the legacy of Coy, the legacy of J.D., everyone at JGR was very upset,” she told the jury. She said her father-in-law called NASCAR chairman Jim France pleading for a resolution.
“Joe said, ‘Jim, you can’t do this,'” she said. “And Jim was done with the conversation.”
Heather Gibbs said she had to leave to take her son to a baseball game in Chapel Hill and left worried about her father-in-law, who was 84 at the time.
“I left him sitting in the dark, listening to his blood sugar monitors going off,” she testified. “We decided we had to sign. We can't lose everything. I did not think it was a fair deal to the teams.”
Joe Gibbs is both a Hall of Fame NASCAR owner and NFL Hall of Fame coach. He led the Washington football team to three Super Bowl titles and JGR has won five Cup Series championships; Heather Gibbs joked it should be six but Hamlin let one slip away in November. Hamlin drives for JGR but is co-owner of 23XI.
JGR has 450 employees, charters for four Cup cars and relies solely on outside sponsorship and investors to keep the team afloat. The team will mark its 35th season next year and Gibbs told the jury that JGR needs permanent charters to protect its investment in NASCAR.
“It’s the most important point, a permanent place in their history books,” she testified. “It is absolutely vital to the teams for us to know we have security, it can’t be taken away, to know what we’ve invested in is ours.”
Heather Gibbs also testified about the letter she sent NASCAR executives earlier in 2024 following a meeting with them in which she said commissioner Steve Phelps offended her by saying JGR spent recklessly on its race team. The letter was introduced into evidence Thursday.
“We’ve put 32 years into investing and building a dream, building careers, building families, and building NASCAR. If the financial model made sense, we would not have had to work with an outside investor," she wrote. "If our teams were financially healthy and did not solely rely on sponsorship, I would sleep better at night, not worrying about when the torch is passed on.
“We have invested not only our time but our family in this sport. We have raised champions and buried their leaders, all while continuing to embrace the historical roots of NASCAR," she added. "So, with all due respect, please understand that when you tell us it doesn’t make sense to partner with us after 7 years is dejecting and truly disappointing.”
NASCAR president Steve O'Donnell, who testified this week, was asked about a text message he sent to Ben Kennedy, nephew of Jim France that read: “Jim is now reading Heather’s letter out loud and swearing every other sentence.” Pressed by plaintiffs attorney Jeffrey Kessler as to what France was saying as he read the letter, O’Donnell instead said the chairman never swore.
“That’s what I wrote, but he was not doing that,” O’Donnell testified. “We were all taken aback by the letter. I think Jim was frustrated, as we all were.”
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Michael Jordan arriving to federal courthouse to testify in NASCAR antitrust case on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo)
FILE - Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins, left, and 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin arrive in the Western District of North Carolina on Monday Dec 1, 2025 in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Jenna Fryer, File)
NASCAR chairman Jim France enters federal court in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday Dec 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenna Fryer)
FILE - Michael Jordan, co-owner of 23XI Racing, sits in his pit box during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Talladega Superspeedway, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, in Talladega, Ala. (AP Photo/ Butch Dill, File)
