What is likely to happen if Iran withdraw from World Cup due to conflict with USA?

The tournament takes place in North America

Those questions appear to have reached a conclusive answer on Wednesday, with the Iranian Sports Minister saying his country "cannot participate in the World Cup" under the current circumstances, according to Reuters.

As announced by US President Trump, strikes were launched as the beginning of attempts to "destroy their [Iran's] missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground," leading to the death of the country's former Supreme Leader Ayotollah Ali Khameni.

Iran is reported to have responded to the surprise action by launching strikes of their own on locations in Israel, as well as US bases in multiple other locations within the Gulf.

As it had stood, all of Iran's group stage matches, against Belgium, Egypt and New Zealand, would have taken place on US soil, imaginably creating major difficulties.

A World Cup nation has not pulled out of the tournament at this late of a stage for more than 70 years, so to understand the ramifications, it is worth referring to Fifa's rulebook.

According to FIFA's rules, quoted here by SportBible, should a team withdraw from the World Cup at such a late stage, then they would be replaced with "a nominated alternate, often the direct runner-up from the relevant qualifying playoff or highest-ranked non-qualified team from that confederation".

"If replacement is impractical (timing, visas, travel), award the group slot to a replacement team but keep schedule; or in exceptional cases adjust group arrangements."

Following this suggestion, it is most likely that the UAE would replace Iran at the World Cup this summer.

UAE actually finished with a worse record than Iraq in Asian qualifying, but Iraq are already set to take part in a continental play-off against either Bolivia or Suriname later in the spring.

Another option could be for Iraq to be handed Iran's place at the tournament, and for UAE to then compete in the play-off.

It is also possible for the organisers to simply move forward with just three teams in Iran's group G.

This would have to be decided by FIFA in the event of a final change.