r/TheTouchline

Jacob Allmendinger, 21, spent the £10,000 (~$13,000) he saved over 5 years for a house deposit to take his 80-year-old grandfather Geoff to the 2026 World Cup in North America.

The pair flew out of the UK on June 26 and are chasing England across cities including Philadelphia, Atlanta, Mexico City and Miami.

Jacob said: "I can always make money back. But I won't ever get to go to the World Cup with my grandfather again." 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

The captain of the Iran National Team, Mehdi Taremi, lashed out against FIFA and the United States organization. “This is a disastrous World Cup. As professional players, we cannot play a competition under these conditions; it’s neither right nor fair. If FIFA thinks this is fair, that’s on them, but it isn’t. Who should solve this problem for us? FIFA? The U.S.? I don’t know! Tell me a name. The FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, came to our locker room after the first match against New Zealand and said he was going to resolve all the issues, but in reality, FIFA did nothing. In response to the question: ‘Do you feel that the World Cup organizers, including FIFA and U.S. officials, prefer for Iran to be eliminated from the competition?’, I say: We have to fight against absolutely everything. We can’t stay in the country, we travel and undergo immigration checks every time we want to play, now we can’t stay in Seattle and have to return to Tijuana. They’ve done everything possible to eliminate us, so from our perspective, yes, I think that’s what they want, they want us out.”