Destination New Jersey: Can Iran play a World Cup in the USA?
Football Daily
BBC
4.3 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mark Chapman is joined by Rory Smith, Mani Djazmi from BBC World Service and Nico Cantor from CBS Sports to discuss the impact of USA being at war with Iran as the World Cup approaches.
Mani and Nico give an insight on potential contingency plans and how the war could affect the World Cup and its preparations. Nico gives his expertise on the footballing planning in the USA and the issues around fans and ticketing cost.
Mexican journalist Marion Reimers joins the pod and tells the team how Mexico is getting ready and the latest situation in the country with the recent unrest.
TIMECODES: 01:30 – Rory on issues going into WC 05:10 – Mani Djazmi & Nico Cantor on Iran 10:00 – The questions over Iran at the WC 23:15 – Prepartions in the USA & ticket prices 29:29 – Journalist Marion Reimers on the feeling in host nation Mexico 38:04 – The draw
5 Live / BBC Sounds commentaries:
Thu 1945 Wales v Bosnia-Herzegovina Fri 1945 England v Uruguay Sat 1200 Everton v Liverpool in the WSL on Sports Extra 2 Sat 1330 Man Utd v Man City in the WSL Sat 1730 Arsenal v Spurs in the WSL on Sports Extra, Sun 1200 Chelsea v Aston Villa in the WSL Sun 1500 Leicester v Brighton & Hove in the WSL on Sports Extra 2
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | An early start here. It's time to kick off. |
| 0:10.0 | Your day. Morning! |
| 0:11.9 | What a line-up. |
| 0:13.3 | Oh, thanks very much. We do get some great guests on the show. |
| 0:16.1 | The crowd is loving this. |
| 0:18.3 | Thanks, guys. Thank you. Too kind. |
| 0:20.2 | From morning chaos to match day commentary. |
| 0:23.6 | And everything in between. |
| 0:25.0 | BBC sounds packed with personality. |
| 0:29.4 | This is the Football Daily podcast with Mark Chapman. |
| 0:34.6 | Welcome to Destination, New Jersey. |
| 0:37.3 | 42 of the 48 teams have qualified over the next week. |
| 0:40.9 | So 22 nations will compete for the final six places. |
| 0:45.0 | Four will be European. |
| 0:46.5 | Two will be from across the rest of the world. |
| 0:48.5 | We'll get the latest from Mexico because that country is hosting the intercontinental playoffs as well. Rory Smith is with us |
| 0:56.4 | for the next couple of hours because the start of it really, I mean I keep saying it's 78 days |
| 1:02.6 | to go and so on as overall on the assumption that everything will be fine. Yeah, but we always have |
| 1:08.2 | these sort of periods before World Cups, don't we? Well Where we kind of think this all looks fairly sort of fragile all of a sudden. |
| 1:15.5 | I've got to admit, I wasn't necessarily expecting that to happen in North America. |
| 1:19.9 | I think quite a lot of people within kind of football's executive class had assumed this |
... |
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