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Two stories arrived in the same news cycle this week and, on the surface, they have nothing to do with each other. One concerns a striker left out of a national squad under circumstances that are, at best, murky. The other is a set of law amendments that will affect every team at the tournament. Together, they tell you rather a lot about the particular flavour of chaos that tends to precede a World Cup.
Iran have omitted Sardar Azmoun from their World Cup 2026 squad. IFAB have confirmed six rule changes that will apply from the group stage onwards. England have flown to Miami. The tournament, in other words, is genuinely happening.
Azmoun Left Out: What We Know and What Remains Unclear
Sardar Azmoun is, by some distance, Iran’s most recognisable footballer. The Bayer Leverkusen forward — 31, capped over 70 times — has been the focal point of Iran’s attack for the better part of a decade. His omission from the squad travelling to the United States is therefore not a selection curiosity. It is the lead item.
BBC Sport reported that Azmoun has been left out amid reports of a perceived act of disloyalty to Iran’s government. The specifics remain vague in the public domain, which is itself telling. When a football federation declines to explain a selection decision involving its best player, the explanation is rarely tactical.
The Independent noted the additional layer of context: Iran are scheduled to play all three of their group matches on American soil, in a political climate that has made the Iran–USA fixture — should it occur — one of the more loaded sporting encounters imaginable. Whether that backdrop influenced the decision around Azmoun is not confirmed. It is, however, the kind of detail that makes the omission harder to read as purely sporting.
What is actually confirmed?
Azmoun is not in the squad. That is confirmed. The stated reason — a perceived act of disloyalty — comes via reports rather than official federation communication. Iran have not, at time of writing, offered a detailed public explanation.
What remains disputed or unclear?
The precise nature of the alleged disloyalty has not been specified by any source. Whether Azmoun’s own views on travelling to the United States played any role is unconfirmed. His club situation at Leverkusen — where he has had a difficult run with injuries — has been mentioned in some quarters as a possible footballing justification, though that reads as retrofitted logic given the timing and the political context swirling around it.
How does this affect Iran’s World Cup prospects?
Bluntly: it does not help them. Iran qualified for the expanded 48-team tournament through the AFC and will face a group stage that, under the new format, gives them a slightly better statistical chance of progression than in previous editions. But removing your most experienced attacker — a player with genuine Bundesliga pedigree — narrows the margin considerably. Iran’s xG numbers in qualifying were already modest; they will need to manufacture chances through collective movement rather than individual quality at the top of the pitch.
Six IFAB Rule Changes That Will Actually Affect How the Tournament Is Played
Away from the squad politics, IFAB have confirmed a set of law changes that will apply at World Cup 2026. Some of these are genuinely significant. Others are long overdue. One or two will cause confusion in the first week before everyone quietly adjusts.
The Independent’s breakdown and Sky Sports’ explainer with Michael Bridge both cover the headline changes. Here is what matters.
The goalkeeper tactical timeout ban — why does this matter?
This is the one that will generate the most discussion. The practice of a goalkeeper suddenly developing a mysterious muscle complaint — usually when their side is winning and the opposition is pressing — has been a fixture of knockout football for years. It allows outfield players to sprint to the touchline and receive detailed tactical instructions from coaching staff. It is, in essence, an unscheduled timeout dressed up as a medical incident.
Under the new rules, referees will be empowered to identify and penalise this behaviour. The Independent reports that coaches rushing to the touchline to deliver instructions during these faux-injury stoppages will now be prohibited. The enforcement mechanism will be interesting to watch — referees will need to distinguish between genuine injury and deliberate time-wasting, which is a judgement call that will not always be straightforward at 1–0 in the 87th minute.
What are the new VAR powers?
VAR’s remit is being expanded at this tournament. Sky Sports’ Bridge explained that VAR officials will have broader powers to intervene in incidents that were previously considered borderline or outside the review threshold. The precise parameters have not been published in full layman’s detail, but the direction of travel is towards more intervention rather than less — which will please some and irritate roughly the same number.
What is the ten-second substitution rule?
Substitutions will need to be completed within ten seconds of the player reaching the touchline. This is a direct response to the time-wasting substitution shuffle — the slow walk, the extended embrace, the unnecessary boot-lace check — that has become a staple of teams protecting leads. It is a sensible change. Whether it is actually enforced with any rigour is a separate question, but the intent is clear.
Are there other changes worth noting?
Yes. The full package of six changes also addresses encroachment at free-kicks and the positioning of defensive walls — areas where enforcement has been inconsistent for years. The cumulative effect, if referees apply the rules as written rather than as traditionally interpreted, should be matches with more actual playing time and fewer manufactured stoppages. Whether that happens in practice, in a tournament where the stakes are existential for every team involved, is a different matter entirely.
England’s Arrival in Miami: Context Without Hysteria
The majority of the England squad have flown to Miami for their pre-tournament preparations. Sky Sports confirmed that warm-up matches against New Zealand and Costa Rica precede England’s opening group game against Croatia on 17 June.
Croatia in the opener is a fixture with recent history attached to it — the 2018 World Cup semi-final being the obvious reference point. England’s Premier League contingent will have finished their domestic season only weeks before, and the acclimatisation to Florida heat is a genuine logistical concern rather than a trivial one. The warm-up fixtures against New Zealand and Costa Rica are not glamour ties, but they serve a purpose: getting minutes into legs, testing the shape, and allowing the coaching staff to make final decisions on roles within the squad.
More detailed tactical analysis of England’s likely setup is available in our summer 2026 storylines feature, but the short version is this: England arrive with genuine quality in the final third and persistent questions about the midfield engine room. Neither of those things is new.
The Bigger Picture Heading Into the Tournament
The Azmoun story and the IFAB rule changes are, in their different ways, representative of what a World Cup actually is before the football starts: a collision of politics, administration, and sporting preparation, all happening simultaneously and not always coherently.
Iran’s situation is the more troubling of the two. A player of Azmoun’s calibre being omitted for reasons that appear to have more to do with political optics than footballing merit is a reminder that national team football operates in a context that club football, for the most part, does not. The World Cup has always been a stage where those tensions surface. Iran’s group stage — played entirely on American soil, potentially including a fixture against the United States — was already going to be one of the more politically charged subplots of the tournament. Azmoun’s absence adds another dimension.
The IFAB changes, meanwhile, are the kind of administrative intervention that football needs periodically and then spends six months arguing about. The goalkeeper timeout ban is the headline item, but the ten-second substitution rule may have the more immediate practical effect on how matches are managed. Coaches who have built their late-game strategies around manufactured stoppages will need to adapt. Some will manage it. Others will find that referees in the opening week are more lenient than the rules suggest, and the whole cycle will begin again.
For a full breakdown of how the expanded format changes the competitive landscape this summer, our 48-team format explainer covers the group stage structure and knockout path in detail.
The football starts on 11 June. Between now and then, there will be more squad announcements, more rule clarifications, and almost certainly more stories that sit somewhere between sport and something else entirely. The Azmoun situation will not be the last of those.
