"After the game today, they said to us, 'You have to leave immediately.'
It's very important for us to have time to recover, but we were asked to get on a plane and return to our camp in Tijuana, and we are really troubled by that."
Ghalenoei insisted that the ongoing geopolitical constraints have placed an unfair burden on his players compared to other competing nations.
"The most oppressed team in the whole World Cup," Ghalenoei remarked.
US Justification and Security Concerns
Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force for the tournament, defended the security measures but stated that officials remain open to reviewing future logistics for the third group match against Egypt.
"The situation is dynamic," Giuliani told reporters. "We have a plan right now.
Tomorrow afternoon [after the match against Belgium], they will take the 27-minute flight back to Tijuana.
We will see how it goes for match two, and then there will be discussions the day after in terms of what it looks like for match three in Seattle."
Giuliani noted that relocating the Iranian base camp closer to the border helped mitigate total transit times for the squad.
"The shift from Tucson to Tijuana, I think, was good for everybody involved. Certainly it reduces their travel time to Los Angeles too," Giuliani explained.
The task force director also clarified that entry denials for certain delegation members were based on specific security intelligence rather than arbitrary tournament policy.
