Iran to be known as 'Minab 168' at the World Cup in tribute to children killed in bombings

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Martin Macdonald | Writer

Content writer covering football, formula 1 and movies

Iran have campaigned for a name change at the 2026 World Cup as a tribute to 168 people, including 110 children, who lost their lives in a bombing in February.

The nation will refer to themselves as 'Minab 168' in reference to the location of the bombing and the number of people that were killed.

The ongoing war between Israel and the United States against Iran has led to hundreds of bombings in the Middle East and on 28 February, a missile destroyed a primary school in Minab.

The decision for the name change was announced during a meeting of Iran’s World Cup Cultural Committee, chaired by Hojjatoleslam Hassan Khani, deputy for cultural affairs and the development of public sports.

“The sorrow of the students of Minab school is a great sorrow, and certainly we must keep alive the memory of the martyred students of Minab and the crime of the Zionist regime and America in sports arenas,” Hassan Khani said.

“So that this team can, in continuation of Iran’s victory in the field of war and negotiation, also defend the sacred flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the football field."

Former US officials have criticised the Pentagon for not acknowledging the country's potential participation in the bombing.

President Donald Trump said on 7 March that in his "opinion", Iran was to blame for the Minab strike, without providing evidence.

Pete Hegseth, US Defence Secretary, was asked by the BBC on 4 March about the strike and said: "All I can say is that we're investigating that. We of course never target civilian targets".

Wes Bryant, a former senior adviser on precision warfare and civilian harm mitigation at the Pentagon's Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, said a military enquiry on the bombing would establish two things:

- Whether the civilian harm actually took place

- Whether the US was operating in the area at the time and could have caused it.

"When you meet both of those criteria, that's the only time that an investigation is actually formally initiated," he said.

"From a process standpoint… that just points even more to the fact that they know already that the US caused this or else they wouldn't doing this investigation and they just don't want to acknowledge it or speak to it.

"To not even be able to have any comment on it whatsoever is just unacceptable."

There is major diplomatic tension surrounding Iran's participation in the World Cup, which is due to take place in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Trump previously said the Iran national team were welcome but it perhaps wouldn't be "appropriate" for the team to travel as he could not guarantee their safety on US soul.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the Iran national team will be welcomed to North America for the World Cup but has barred other travellers with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Nothing from the US has told them they can’t come,” Rubio told reporters.

“The problem with Iran would be not their athletes. It would be some of the other people they would want to bring with them, some of whom have ties to the IRGC. We may not be able to let them in, but not the athletes themselves,” Rubio said.

“They can’t bring a bunch of IRGC terrorists into our country and pretend that they are journalists and athletic trainers."

Washington has designated the IRGC as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.