Iranian wrestlers to miss tournaments in Croatia and Russia due to visa issues

Iran's national freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling teams will be unable to participate in the ranking tournament in Croatia due to visa denial.

Idman.Biz reports that the official list released by the World Wrestling Federation regarding the participants of the tournament does not include the names of Iranian wrestlers, including world and Olympic champion Hassan Yazdani.

It is noted that these competitions were of great importance for the technical staff of the Iranian national teams. In addition, since these ranking competitions directly affect the wrestlers' position for the world championship, the points collected here were considered important for the Iranian representatives.

According to the source, although the World Wrestling Federation removed the names of Iranian wrestlers from the initial list, the leadership of the Iranian Wrestling Federation held intensive negotiations with the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other official bodies to resolve the visa issue. However, these efforts have not yielded results so far.

It should be noted that the Iranian team has also not been granted a visa for the Ivan Yarygin Cup international freestyle wrestling competition to be held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Although the Wrestling Federation started administrative procedures a month ago to obtain Russian visas for freestyle wrestlers, the Russian embassy ultimately refused to grant the Iranian team visas to participate in these competitions.

Although no reason was given for the visa denial, it is believed to be due to recent events in Iran.