Trump and FIFA Have Already Broken the 2026 World Cup |
Trump and FIFA Have Already Broken the 2026 World Cup
Travel bans, ICE fears, and astronomical costs are ruining the tournament before it begins—not that Trump or Gianni Infantino care.
Take a random moment from Trump’s second term—his inauguration, a state visit to the Middle East, a meeting of the preposterous “Board of Peace,” even just a random day when cameras are allowed into the Oval Office—and there is a decent chance that Gianni Infantino will be somewhere in the frame. From practically the moment Trump returned to office, the FIFA president has slavishly followed him, like an Italian golden retriever, practically everywhere.
Infantino likes to pitch himself as a partner, which to some extent he is: Beginning in June, he and Trump will put on the 2026 World Cup, the majority of which will take place in the United States. Together, the FIFA boss said when Trump was inaugurated, they will “make not only America great again, but also the entire world.” Over the last 15 months, Infantino has backed Trump as he has has gone to war with one World Cup qualifying nation (Iran), placed severe travel restrictions on several others, and threatened more or less the entire world, including World Cup co-hosts Mexico and Canada. In October, Infantino donned a red MAGA hat and pledged FIFA money to Trump’s offensive Gaza redevelopment plan; two months later, he handed him the inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize,” which may be the most ridiculous prize in human history. Infantino has even started to talk like Trump: The World Cup, he said shortly before handing Trump the gilded FIFA Peace Prize in December, is “simply the greatest event that humanity, that mankind, has ever seen and will ever see.”
Trump and Infantino are two peas in a rotten pod: They’re both greedy, corrupt international leaders who lie to get what they want, flout the rules, and gouge everyday people. It’s no surprise, then, that their respective domains have come to resemble each other, too. Ostensibly a celebration of global diversity, harmony, and sport, the 2026 World Cup under Infantino has become a lot like the U.S. under Trump: chaotic, divisive, and increasingly derailed by scandal and conflict. What deeper level of hell awaits us when these two forces converge in June?
Infantino is fond of describing the World Cup in messianic terms. The tournament, he said in 2024, “is a unique catalyst ... for positive social........