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Iran’s football squad have been granted visas to play in the World Cup, US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack confirmed in a message on X on Friday.

“Proud of our outstanding team at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara for their work processing visas for Iran’s national football team on their road to the @FIFAWorldCup in the United States,” he said, commenting on a news report that Iran’s World Cup players have been granted the visas to enter the United States.

“Sports transcends borders, and we look forward to welcoming competitors and fans from around the world,” the ambassador said.

The Iranian team is due to fly from Turkey to Spain on Saturday before travelling on to their base camp in Mexico, which has issued visas to the squad.

The team will be based in Mexico during the tournament in North America, but all three of their group stage matches are due to be held in the United States.

They were originally due to be based in the US but switched their camp to Mexico due to the tensions between them and the United States over the war in the Middle East.

The two countries have been at war since the US and Israel began bombing Iran at the end of February, although currently a fragile ceasefire is being observed.

Iran begin their World Cup campaign against New Zealand on June 16 in Los Angeles.

They will play further group matches against Belgium, also in LA, and Egypt in Seattle.

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Liverpool have appointed Andoni Iraola as their new head coach.

Iraola, 43, signed a two-year deal to replace Arne Slot, who was sacked on Saturday – a year after guiding the club to the Premier League title.

Former Bournemouth manager Iraola joins after delivering the Cherries’ finest top-flight season to date, finishing in sixth place.

That was only one position and three points behind Liverpool and gave Bournemouth a place in next season’s Europa League.

The Spaniard announced in April that he would leave Bournemouth this summer, and he had been linked with Crystal Palace and AC Milan.

Now he moves to Merseyside, with Liverpool having qualified for next season’s Champions League despite finishing the Premier League season with 60 points – their lowest tally since 2015-16 and a distant 25 points behind winners Arsenal.

“Really excited, really excited,” said Iraola. “Because obviously you know about Liverpool, you know that it’s a big club, a massive club, one of the biggest in the world.

“You don’t need a lot of things to get attracted by Liverpool. Liverpool is Liverpool.”

He added: “I think Liverpool gives me the chance to coach top players, and top players give you the chance to fight for titles. To win titles.

“Obviously, when you arrive at a place, you cannot promise everything. You cannot promise. But I indeed understand where I’m coming from and what is expected.

“I’m ready for the challenge.”

Iraola, who recalled Anfield’s roar when Federico Chiesa scored a late winner against his Bournemouth side last August, is understood to be keen to add Tommy Elphick and Shaun Cooper, his assistants with the Cherries, to his coaching staff.

Remembering Bournemouth’s trip to Liverpool almost 10 months ago, Iraola said: “[Chiesa] scored and the place erupted. It was crazy, no? I want to feel this now from the other side.

“At the beginning, when you arrive at any club, I think you need to kind of prove a little bit yourself.

“You need to earn the right also to belong. I want to do this as quickly as possible so I can also celebrate with them and I can be part of those celebrations properly.”

The decision to sack Slot was made by Michael Edwards, who is Fenway Sports Group’s chief executive of football, and Liverpool’s sporting director Richard Hughes.

Together, they decided the club required a more front-foot, aggressive, and urgent style of football.

Iraola was appointed at Bournemouth when Hughes was technical director at the Cherries, a role he left in 2024 to join the Reds.

Former RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund head coach Marco Rose has been confirmed as Iraola’s replacement at Bournemouth.

Liverpool spent £450m last summer – the highest outlay in a single window by a British club – in a bid to retain their league title.

They broke the British transfer record to sign striker Alexander Isak from Newcastle for £125m and also bought Bayer Leverkusen and Germany playmaker Florian Wirtz for £116m.

Iraola used to play football on the beach as a child with Mikel Arteta and Xabi Alonso. Now all three will be Premier League managers next season.

For a while, Iraola did not think he would make football his profession, and he was three years into a law degree when he gave it up to commit to the demands of playing at full-back for Athletic Club.

After coaching in Cyprus and taking recent Conference League finalists Rayo Vallecano back into the Spanish top flight, he arrived in England with a relatively low profile but soon made his name by making Bournemouth a Premier League force.

Iraola started his football education at renowned Basque amateur club Antiguoko alongside Alonso and Arteta, who are now in charge at Chelsea and Arsenal respectively.

They played football on the beach as children, but only when the tide was out.

Iraola told BBC Sport’s Kelly Somers last year: “It’s incredible because when we were seven, eight, nine, I played with Mikel Arteta, I played with Xabi Alonso.

“We are more or less the same age, playing sometimes against each other because I was in a school and they were in other schools when we were playing on the beach.

“Then after we played together in a small club, also in Antiguoko, and now it’s amazing that we see each other on the football pitches almost 40 years later.”

Iraola spent the bulk of his playing career with Athletic Club, where he worked under top coaches such as Marcelo Bielsa, who led the Bilbao side to two finals in 2012, and future Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde.

But it was when he left the club in 2015 to see out his career at New York City FC that he truly got to rub shoulders with the game’s elite, playing in a team containing Frank Lampard, Andrea Pirlo and David Villa, and managed by Patrick Vieira.

“It was the moment where I realised I was going to retire and I started thinking about the game differently,” Iraola said.

“I also had Patrick Vieira as a coach. He showed me a different style of play because he was coming from the Manchester City academy, where there was more positional play, and I was used to a different style of play.”

Iraola has a history of overachieving everywhere he has been, beginning with his playing career.

He spent 15 years with Athletic Club, which famously only picks players with ties to the Basque Country. In his four seasons as captain, the club reached two Copa del Rey finals, a Europa League final, and qualified for the Champions League.

In his first management role with AEK Larnaca, Iraola led the Cypriot side to qualify for the Europa League group stage for only the second time.

Then at little-known Spanish second division side CD Mirandes, he steered a team destined for relegation to a mid-table finish – and led them to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey, knocking out La Liga heavyweights Celta Vigo, Sevilla and Villarreal.

Expectations were similarly low when he took charge of Rayo Vallecano, but he inspired them to promotion via the play-offs, overcoming a 2-1 home defeat by Girona to win the second leg 2-0 despite playing most of the second half with 10 men.

He took over at Bournemouth in 2023 when they had finished the Premier League season in 15th place, something that was deemed a success after Gary O’Neil replaced Scott Parker following a 9-0 loss to Liverpool just four games in. Since then, Iraola has guided the Cherries to a new level.

He has continued to network since becoming a coach, remaining in close contact with Alonso. He got to know Eddie Howe when the ex-Bournemouth manager was on a sabbatical before he moved to Newcastle United, inviting him to Madrid to watch his Rayo team train and “exchange ideas, especially on how to set up against the biggest teams”.

Iraola had no problem doing just that last season with Bournemouth as his side beat Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal, Newcastle and Everton, garnering fans and friends with an exciting brand of football that was not derailed by the January sale of star man Antoine Semenyo.

Another Spaniard, Pep Guardiola, even used Iraola’s side as an example of “modern football” last year.

Guardiola said: “Today, modern football is the way that Bournemouth play, that Newcastle play, Brighton play – Liverpool have always been like that.”

In 2025-26, Bournemouth went on an 18-game unbeaten run.

Fans at Anfield will hope for a similar upturn now that Iraola has the chance to work with a squad of established stars and big-money signings.

The new head coach will certainly look to build a strong relationship with fans – counting that rapport as important as results on the pitch.

Iraola said in his BBC Sport interview last year: “The most important thing when I come to a new club is this: when I leave, I hope everyone has good things to say about me.

“When I come back 10 years later, I still have relationships with people inside the clubs. This has happened in all the clubs I have been to, and I hope it continues.”

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Arsenal have revealed that eight players will leave the club this summer, with a further seven players leaving the women’s team.

Recall that Mikel Arteta’s side were beaten in the Champions League final on penalties by PSG, who retained their crown.

The Gunners ended their 22-year wait for a Premier League title, and no first-team stars will leave the Emirates Stadium this summer, while eight youngsters will depart at the end of their contracts.

Piero Hincapie is the only senior star with his immediate future needing to be decided. The Gunners have an option to buy the Ecuador international for a reported £ 45 million this summer, after agreeing a deal with Bayer Leverkusen last summer.

Sam Chapman, Harrison Dudziak, Seb Ferdinand, Cam’ron Ismail, Will Lannin-Sweet, Josh Nichols, Samuel Onyekachukwu, and Alexei Rojas-Federushchenko will all leave the club.

In a club statement, Arsenal said: “We thank all the players leaving us for their contributions to the club. You will always be part of the Arsenal Family, and we wish you all the best of health and happiness in your futures.

“Any further developments regarding players extending their contracts, as well as joining/re-joining, or leaving us, will be officially communicated when confirmed.”

Gabriel Jesus, Leandro Trossard, Christian Norgaard and Gabriel Martinelli’s contracts expire in 2027, and the club is expected to cash in on some of those players this summer, though they have an option for a further year in the latter duo’s contracts.

Jakub Kiwior will be sold this summer, but is not included on the list, after an agreement was reached with Porto following this season’s loan.

Arteta has already laid down the mantle for Arsenal transfer chiefs this summer, calling on the board to be ‘very ambitious.’

Speaking after the defeat to PSG in the Champions League final, Arteta said: “It is very tough to accept when you are so consistent all the way to the final, and in the end you lose the trophy on penalties.

“We need to do better, we have to improve, and we have to find different margins to get the outcome we want.

“First of all, I will take a few days with my family, and then we will start the process to review what we have done.

“We will have to start making some very important decisions if we want to reach another level.

“We are going to have to show that ambition because we are more than capable of doing it, but it is going to demand that we be very ambitious, very fast, and very smart.”

There are also some big names leaving the Women’s team this summer, with Katie McCabe, Beth Mead, Manuela Zinsberger, Laia Codina, Victoria Pelova, Barbora Votikova and Naomi Williams all set to depart.

Club legends Mead and McCabe will leave the club after memorable tenures. The latter will join Chelsea for the new season, while Mead has been linked with a move to Manchester City, where she could join up with former Gunner Vivianne Miedema.