The United States should never host the World Cup because it is a country built on racism, repression, and endless war. FIFA and its leaders ignored international demands to host the matches elsewhere and now face calls for a boycott of the World Cup and of the U.S.
“Football is the only sport where you put people together, it doesn’t matter if you are rich, or poor, or black, or white. It is one nation. This is the beauty of football.” - Pele’
This week the United States, along with Canada and Mexico, will host the first matches of the 2026 World Cup (Copa Mundial). The U.S. acting as one of the tournament’s hosts has been met with a mix of concern and outrage. For instance, earlier this year when President Trump insisted that the nation of Greenland should be annexed as a U.S. territory, members of the German soccer federation’s executive committee suggested a boycott of the World Cup. At the time, Oke Göttlich, the president of Bundesliga club St. Pauli and one of the German federation’s 10 vice presidents stated, “As organizations and society, we’re forgetting how to set taboos and boundaries, and how to defend values. Taboos are an essential part of our stance. Is a taboo crossed when someone threatens? Is a taboo crossed when someone attacks? When people die?” He continued, “I would like to know from Donald Trump when he has reached his taboo, and I would like to know from [German Federation President] Bernd Neuendorf and [FIFA President] Gianni Infantino.”
For his part, Infantino seems to have answered Göttlich’s questions by performing more cosmetic surgery on the image of the United States than all of the plastic surgeons in Southern California combined. As part of numerous trips to visit Fuhrer Trump at the White People’s House, FIFA’s sycophant in chief has bent over backwards to please the U.S. president. He’s even resorted to off-colored and ill timed jokes in a feckless attempt to assuage concerns about the U.S. acting as World Cup hosts. During one trip, shortly after Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents invaded and occupied Minneapolis, resulting in numerous instances of wanton dehumanization and brutality of the city’s residents including the broad daylight executions of Rene’e Good and Alex Pretti, Infantino, while speaking to Mayors and other city officials concerned about domestic militarism in their cities, remarked, “For the first time in 250 years of history of the United States of America, well, you will not just be invaded but you will be conquered…You will be conquered by soccer.”
Infantino, in further attempting to paint the U.S. as a beacon of peace, inclusion, and a panacea appropriate to host “the beautiful game” last year even created a “peace prize” which he awarded to Trump during a lavish ceremony at the recently re-named Kennedy Center. While presenting the prize to Trump, Infantino proudly proclaimed, “We want to see hope, we want to see unity, we want to see a future. This is what we want to see from a leader and you definitely deserve the first Fifa Peace Prize.” While it’s clear that Infantino’s breath must certainly smell like leather from all the licking of Trump’s boots, it pales in comparison to the stench of U.S. empire that forms the most potent miasma in the world given the litany of its transgressions since presenting Trump with the imaginary FIFA “peace” prize. So much so that even high ranking FIFA officials who spoke to the press, under the condition of anonymity, expressed concern about Infantino’s relationship with Trump and the games being hosted in the U.S. with one high ranking official stating, “staging the World Cup in the US is going to be a very delicate and difficult period, in the months leading up to the tournament as well as during the competition itself.” These concerns have been vindicated.
Since Infantino’s successive suck up to Trump sessions, the U.S. has illegally kidnapped Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, launched a siege of Cuba and a resulting humanitarian crisis, continued to aid and abet the zionist entity’s “Greater Israel” conquest of the Middle East including the Occupied West Bank of Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, while also turning a blind eye to a series of broken ceasefires that continue to terrorize and subject the people of Gaza to genocide, ethnic cleansing. And if that was enough, the U.S.’s recent war of choice and aggression launched against the Islamic Republic of Iran, in collaboration and cooperation with the zionist ethnostate, has plunged the global economy into chaos and a tail spin that is largely being felt by poor and working class people who can’t afford to attend World Cup matches due to the obscenely high ticket prices as high as $8,680 for regular matches and a profligate $32,970 for the finals. All said, Infantino’s calls for hope, unity and a future are unfounded and anodyne given his full endorsement of the games being hosted in a nation that is and always has been the direct antithesis of these values and principles.
And it’s not just the international lawlessness and gangsterism that should have disqualified the U.S. from hosting the game - its domestic policies and treatment of non white people further vindicate why the U.S. is not an appropriate or safe place for the games to be hosted. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “More than 6.5 million people are expected to attend the tournament. In the U.S., many of the games and events will take place in cities that have already experienced the harshest impacts of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.” They add, “Fans, players, journalists, and everyone alike should be prepared for potential risks, including racial profiling by law enforcement, invasive social media screening, searches of electronic devices, suppression of speech and protest, and other threats to civil liberties.” Additionally, in a report entitled Humanity Must Win: Defending Rights, Tackling Repression at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Amnesty International focused specifically on human rights abuses in the U.S., “The USA – where three-quarters of World Cup matches will be held – is facing a “human rights emergency” and a recognizable pattern of authoritarian practices. Armed agents are breaking down doors, detaining children and have deported hundreds of thousands of people. LGBTQI+ fan groups say it is not safe to have a visible presence, and supporters of four qualifying countries are barred from entering the country.”
But fans are not alone in experiencing repressive treatment and a taste of the U.S.’s particular brand of white “supremacy” and kinetic bigotry. Yesterday The Guardian released an article documenting everyone from FIFA referees to officials of national teams subjected to the cruel and inhumane policies of the U.S. Omar Atan, who was set to be the first Somalian to officiate a World Cup match was denied entry into the U.S. and will now miss the tournament. Rather than use Infantino’s special relationship with Trump to intervene on Atan’s behalf, FIFA cravenly backed down and issued a statement washing their hands of the situation in a way that would make Pontius Pilate embarrassed, “Fifa is not involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications … in line with previous Fifa events, a host government ultimately determines who receives a visa and who is admitted into their country.” Officials representing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s national team have also experienced diplomatic mistreatment as some are still waiting to be cleared to enter the U.S. forcing the team to move its training facilities to Tijuana, Mexico, even though their matches will be played in Los Angeles and Seattle. Various other examples exist demonstrating the racist, xenophobic, and bigoted culture that will be attached to a tournament that purports to be a celebration of different cultures coming together as one global community as indicated by FIFA’s propaganda machine.
To put this all into perspective, olympic champion Jess Owens was given less hassle entering Nazi Germany in 1936 and reported experiencing better treatment by the Germans, including Adolf Hitler who shook his hand unlike U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt who refused to acknowledge his achievements. Owens also discussed the juxtaposition of being permitted to share lodging with white athletes while in Germany versus being forced to stay in a hotel while in New York City for a parade in his honor that wouldn’t even allow him to enter through the lobby. That the U.S. in 2026 is a less welcoming place for non white people than Nazi Germany was in 1936 for a Black man refutes Amnesty International’s notion, “There is still time to save the 2026 World Cup from becoming a stage for repression and a platform for authoritarian practices.” With due respect to Amnesty International, we have passed that point and there is only one thing to be done - boycott the games, boycott FIFA, and boycott the U.S.
Last week the Black Alliance for Peace’s (BAP) North South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights (the Project”) officially called for continuing the work previously considered by Göttlich and other members of European governments from Germany to Scotland - A boycott of the 2026 World Cup.
Per the Project’s recent press statement, “ [The U.S.] A country that is brutally attacking the humanity and sovereignty of nations throughout the world in their ongoing quest for full spectrum domination - in its violent attacks on Cuba and Iran, while holding captive the President of Venezuela and violently pressing its Zionist project for colonial expansion in Gaza - remains, with ample evidence, an illegitimate and dangerous host for the World Cup Games.” BAP, the Project, and their partners with the Anti Fascist Football Coalition - an international network of over 32 organizations - have heeded the call to stop FIFA, the U.S. and other complicit nations from adulterating the words of one of the great football players and international sport ambassadors of all time, Pele’ who truly believed that the game is beautiful because it’s for everyone - not just the elite and the petty bourgeois, and certainly not for those who exercise and exacerbate the sick and twisted ideologies of white “supremacy” and imperialism that are ensconced in the very fabric of the U.S. For the sake of the game, people(s)-centered human rights, and the good of the world, we must show FIFA, the U.S. and all associated forms of oppression and subjugation the proverbial red card.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright is an international climate and environmental liberation advocate, a racial justice practitioner, and a writer and policy expert residing in the United States with his family and their mischievous cat, “Evil” Ernie. He is a proud and active member of the Black Alliance for Peace and the Movement for Black Lives. His radio program, “Full Spectrum with Anthony Rogers-Wright,” airs on the Mighty WPFW network every Tuesday at 6:00 PM EST.
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