The 76th annual FIFA Council is taking place in Vancouver this week, with representatives of all 211 members, or at least in theory, because Iranian officials have not entered Canada and turned around after "unacceptable behaviour of immigration officials." A statement initially reported by Tehran's Tasnim News Agency said that the Iranian federation, with its president Mehdi Taj, secretary general Hedayat Mombeni and deputy secretary general Hamed Momeni, "returned to Turkey on the first available flight due to the unacceptable behaviour of immigration officials at the airport and the insult to one of the most honourable organs of the Iranian nation's armed forces".
Before being the president of the Iranian football federation, Mehdi Taj was a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), listed as a terrorist organisation in Canada. Taj had been granted a special permission to enter Canada only for the FIFA event, otherwise he would have not been allowed to enter.
However, the Iranian officials seemingly decided themselves to turn back to Iran via Turkey due to the treatment received by immigration authorities, although Canada's foreign minister Anita Anand said that they officials had been "unintentionally" denied entrance.
The The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, a Canadian NGO, said that "the decision to grant him entry at all was profoundly troubling. It undermines Canada's designation of the IRGC as a terrorist entity and contradicts our country's commitment to combatting impunity for serious human rights abuses in Iran."
Iran is one of the 48 countries qualified for World Cup next summer, and its presence has been discussed a lot, because they have to play all three of group stage matches in US soil. FIFA insists they will go.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International has warned about the danger and risk to fans, players, journalists, workers, and local communities coming from abusive US immigration policies, and has asked FIFA president Gianni Infantino to take a stance and ask Trump to stop deportations during the competition.