MAJOR football competitions have generally been something of a celebration of the game and the coming together of different races. There is often a deep curiosity among attendees when it comes to meeting fans from opposing countries; After all, football is a global language in itself and an icebreaker. Despite the minority who want to use these occasions as an excuse for bad behavior and excesses gone wrong, the ‘jamboree’ aspect of a World Cup makes for a pretty good atmosphere. In the host country(s) it will largely be carnival time.
After savoring the World Cup experience of local bars with fans from Mexico, Germany, England and Saudi Arabia, among others, mixed with good humor and appreciation for the great game, such an atmosphere made you forget about politics, FIFA marketing and restrictions and the constant plugging of brands and partnerships. The fanzone experience, which was an improvement, was not just found on the official grounds, but everywhere you went. The same applied to the European Championships.
But things are in danger of changing and the sense of wonder that came from encountering small groups of visiting football people could become a thing of the past. This World Cup, unnecessarily bloated and put in the hands of people who don’t really understand the culture of the game, could be a complete mess. We have three hosting nations, the dominant of the three being the US, which presents a hostile front against fellow host nations Canada and Mexico, and is in the midst of an initiative that uses intimidating tactics to crack down on immigration. Football fans, who can get raucous with little persuasion, may be confronted by masked shock troops who don’t ask many questions. The fans, even those who enjoy arm-to-arm combat, won’t take their chances against armed ICE warriors and their bully approach.
If anything, what the world has seen unfold from America this past year could create a tense backdrop for the 2026 World Cup. Attendees of the match will have paid significant sums of money to attend, but when they get there they may be very nervous about the kind of reception they might receive. Cleaning up the social environment, as some might call it, has been done before before major sporting events. Adolf Hitler did it in Berlin in 1936 and in 2018 Vladimir Putin did the same in Moscow. Is Donald Trump trying to achieve something similar in the US, or can this be more easily explained as aggressive right-wing behavior? Whatever the motivation, many people will be dissuaded from visiting the US for the World Cup.
The damage to the US is something that is constantly debated in countless late night discussions, but this will also damage the World Cup and FIFA. If 2026 is indeed a terrible mess and, to put it bluntly, hell for anyone who travels to watch football, it could tarnish the league’s reputation. Whatever we may think, it is likely that we will be told that the 2026 World Cup was a huge success, that there has never been a bigger, more exciting sporting event and that Trump and his regime were the perfect hosts. It’s clear that it will make more money than any previous edition, but it’s not just about that. A 48-team World Cup will have a lot of bad games and a lot of mediocre teams. If you’ve watched AFCON, CONCACAF or AFC football, you know that the cream layer on the top is very thin.
The problem is that the joy about the World Cup will diminish further in 2026, the way things are developing now. It started some time ago, but when it comes to Trump and his entourage, which must be a risk, who’s to say that future administrations won’t see it as an opportunity for self-promotion? For the good of the game, we have to hope that it won’t be as crude as many of us expect. Football should be the winner in the summer of 2026, not the White House.
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Game of the People was founded in 2012 and is ranked among the 100 best football websites by various sources. The site consistently wins awards for its work, across a wide range of topics. View all posts by Neil Fredrik Jensen
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