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Brazil President, Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, has joked that Neymar is “the first player in the world to be called up to the national side and be working remotely.”
The 80-year-old was speaking during a ceremony at a hospital in the southeast city of Belo Horizonte.
Neymar only returned to training with the squad this week after recovering from a calf injury.
The 34-year-old, who is Brazil’s record goalscorer with 79 goals, missed the opening 1-1 draw with Morocco.
He has also been omitted by coach Carlo Ancelotti from the squad for their second group game against Haiti on Saturday.
“Neymar? He is not even playing!” Lula replied to a young boy when he mentioned Neymar’s name.
“Neymar is the first player to be called up (to the national team) who is working remotely.”
Iran’s soccer federation has accused the United States of “vindictive behavior” after saying that visas were refused for “key managerial and administrative members” of its World Cup team.
The Iran Football Federation’s secretary-general, Hedayat Mombeini, and its vice president, Mehdi Mohammad Nabi, were among 14 backroom staff and officials without U.S. visas before games in Los Angeles and Seattle, according to Iranian state television.
It was unclear whether the federation’s president, Mehdi Taj, had been issued a visa.
Iran’s team set off from Turkey for its training base in Mexico on Saturday before three group matches in the United States later this month. Officials who have been denied visas were due to travel to Mexico while efforts continued to obtain them, Iranian news agency Tasnim reported.
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The team’s participation in the World Cup has been complicated by the Iran war. Problems with processing visas had earlier led Iran to move its training base from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico, which is on the border with California.
The decision to deny visas to some members of Iran’s entourage had “effectively denied the Iranian national team the opportunity for a level playing field and a competition free from discrimination,” according to a statement on the federation’s website. It added that the federation would pursue the matter through world soccer authority FIFA.
The Iranian Embassy in Ankara, meanwhile, responded to an earlier social media post from U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack, in which he congratulated his embassy staff for processing the Iran team’s visas.
“You cannot whitewash conduct that violates FIFA regulations and breaches the United States’ host obligations merely by praising yourselves,” the Iranian post read. “This represents the worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport.”
