Body found outside Tijuana stadium where Iran team is training for World Cup

Mexican authorities are investigating how a corpse ended up outside a stadium in the border city of Tijuana, where Iran’s national team has been training for its upcoming World Cup match against New Zealand.

Officials said they found the corpse on Friday in a parking lot across from Tijuana’s Estadio Caliente stadium. The body was inside a bag in the trunk of a gray vehicle, which was opened by police due to its pungent smell.

Iran’s national squad is using Tijuana as its base during the World Cup due to visa delays, as well as travel restrictions imposed on the team’s administrative staff and coaches. The team will travel to Los Angeles next week for its first group stage match June 15 against New Zealand’s All Whites at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

The Iranian team was initially slated to train in Tucson, Arizona, but after the Iran war broke out in late February, the team chose to move its base to Mexico over security concerns.

In March, Iran unsuccessfully tried to move its group games from the U.S. to Mexico. Along with New Zealand, Iran faces Belgium on June 21, also at SoFi Stadium, and Egypt on June 26 in Seattle.

Tijuana is one of Mexico’s 10 most violent cities, according to the Citizen’s Council of Public Security, a Mexican think tank that makes an annual listing of murder rates in Mexico. Last year, the city government recorded 1,219 homicides in a city of more than 2.3 million residents, noting a 32% reduction from the number of murders recorded in the city in 2024.

Tijuana is located along Mexico’s Pacific coast, next to the U.S. border just south of San Diego. The area has long been used by criminal groups to smuggle drugs and has recently hosted thousands of migrants who have been denied entry into the U.S.