Iran’s footballers will be welcome at this year’s World Cup, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday, distancing the US government from a proposal that Italy could take their place in the tournament, Reuters reported. 

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Rubio denied that Washington had asked the Iranian team not to come to the World Cup – but warned that the United States may yet bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation it judged to have ties to Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is regarded as a terrorist organization by Washington and several other governments.

No-one “from the US has told them they can’t come”, Rubio said of Iran’s World Cup participation.