Donald Trump has again said he will pressure FIFA to pull the 2026 World Cup matches from a host city based on that city’s politics, with Boston becoming the third such city to receive such a threat from the US president. Trump also said he would consider a similar move against Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics due to possible security concerns.
Trump has no legal authority to take direct action, but he can pressure each league’s governing body to move host cities.
His comments came during a press event with Argentine President Javier Milei, who visited the White House after announcing a $20 billion rescue package for the South American country. Near the end of the event, a reporter asked Trump about a recent “street takeover” in Boston in which police officers were attacked and a police car set on fire, and whether the concerns raised by the incident could result in the withdrawal of hosting duties for next year’s expanded 48-team football tournament. The reporter also asked whether Trump would work with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to address the issue.
“We could take them away,” Trump said of the World Cup matches, which will be held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, about 22 miles southwest of Boston. “Their mayor is no good… She’s a radical leftist and they’re taking over parts of Boston. That’s a pretty big statement, right?”
Street takeovers, a social media-driven phenomenon in which large groups of people gather on city streets late at night to perform stunts in cars, have repeatedly been a nuisance in US cities since the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown. Recent such meetings have done just that in Massachusetts, also in Boston. In general, however, the gatherings are not seen as tied to any particular political ideology.
“If someone is doing a poor job and I think the conditions are unsafe, I would call Gianni [Infantino]the head of FIFA, who is phenomenal, and say, let’s move it to another location,” Trump said on Tuesday. “And he would do that. He wouldn’t like to do it, but he would do it. Very easily, he would do it.
Infantino has made no secret of his efforts to publicly align with Trump ahead of next year’s tournament, which will take place in 11 U.S. cities, along with two in Canada and three in Mexico. The FIFA president has appeared at several Oval Office events, had Trump present the Club World Cup trophy to Chelsea after that tournament’s final (where the US president overstayed his welcome during the trophy lift), and even postponed his own organization’s congress to accompany Trump on a trip to the Middle East earlier in 2025.
Most recently, Infantino showed up in Egypt with Trump for the Gaza summit. The Fifa Club World Cup trophy and the FIFA Men’s World Cup trophy, gifts from Infantino, have both found a seemingly permanent place in Trump’s Oval Office decor.
That hasn’t stopped Trump from threatening to remove World Cup matches from other US host cities. On September 25, Seattle and San Francisco came into his crosshairs, with Trump saying both cities were “run by radical left-wing lunatics who don’t know what they’re doing,” while criticizing the level of security at both locations and claiming that games could be removed.
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Fifa vice president Victor Montagliani dismissed Trump’s claims when he at a conference in London.
“It’s FIFA’s tournament, FIFA’s jurisdiction, FIFA makes those decisions,” Montagliani said. “With all due respect to today’s world leaders, football is bigger than themselves and football will outlive their regime, their government and their slogans. That is the beauty of our game, that it is bigger than any individual and bigger than any country.”
On Tuesday, Trump’s response to a question about Boston turned into a similar threat to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
“If I didn’t think LA would be well prepared, I would move it to another location if I had to,” he said. “I would probably have to get some other kind of permission for that, but we would do that.”
The permission Trump refers to would have to come through the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The president, Kirsty Coventry, was elected to office in March and has not yet made a public appearance with Trump, although she said so she would like to talk to him
Trump also criticized California Governor Gavin Newsom’s handling of the wildfires earlier this year, saying a similar situation could lead to the cancellation of the Olympics.
“If he doesn’t play along, we’re going to have to be very tough,” Trump said.
His message was also clear for Boston.
“Boston better clean up their act,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”
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