Soccer is used to heads of state presenting trophies. The emir of Qatar handed over the World Cup in 2022, as Queen Elizabeth II did in 1966 and the French president Albert Lebrun did in 1938. But it is not used to heads of state then celebrating on the podium. Benito Mussolini, it’s true, did so at the 1934 World Cup after handing over the trophy, but at least he was celebrating with his own national team; Trump had previously shown no obvious affinity for Chelsea. Which raises all sorts of issues before this summer’s World Cup, to be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Each of the previous 22 World Cups has been to an extent a projection of the host, but the 2026 edition looks as if it will be a projection less of the United States than of Trump — and that could, in turn, affect how the world’s biggest sporting event is regarded around the globe.
The World Cup has always been a political event. The first tournament, staged in Uruguay in 1930, was a self-conscious celebration of its hosts. Uruguay had won gold in the soccer tournament at both the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, and recognized immediately what a coup that represented. “The performance of the Uruguay team,” the pro-government newspaper El Día reported, “has done more for the fame of Uruguay than thousands of dollars spent on propaganda.” The opportunity was too good to miss: The inaugural World Cup was played during the centennial of the signing of Uruguay’s constitution. When Uruguay played its first game, exactly 100 years to the day of the signing, it beat Peru 1-0 in the Estadio Centenario, a striking modernist edifice built for the occasion that is still in regular use today. The importance the Uruguayan state placed on the World Cup was made clear in that first year when President Juan Campisteguy invited the FIFA president Jules Rimet to a barbecue; a largely obscure French sports administrator had suddenly become a political player.
Every host since has projected a political message of one kind or another, from Mussolini promoting Italy as a modern, efficient nation in 1934, to England’s celebration of a liberated, swinging London in 1966, to the Argentinian junta’s grim insistence on its insuperability in 1978, to Japan and South Korea’s embrace of globalization in 2002. The 1994 tournament in the United States, while signifying FIFA’s gleeful plunge into full-on commercialism, was also about the country establishing itself as a soccer nation, leading to the launch of Major League Soccer, the American professional league, two years later.
The 2006 World Cup in Germany was known as the Sommermärchen – the summer fairy-tale — a hugely positive experience: 16 years after reunification, Germany could express itself as a happy, welcoming, patriotic place, able to fly the flag again without constant apology for the crimes of the past.
For South Africa and Brazil, hosts in 2010 and 2014, the World Cup was about status, about the emerging BRICS nations presenting themselves as major global players. For the Partido dos Trabalhadores governments of Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, the World Cup was part of a strategy of hosting megaevents to accelerate urban revitalization, boost global soft power, and stimulate tourism. Perhaps before 2010 it would have worked, but from that year’s tournament in South Africa onward, FIFA stopped sharing broadcast, sponsorship, licensing, and ticket revenues with the hosts, even as it demanded tax breaks. The South African president Jacob Zuma later admitted that the World Cup had cost 10 times more than expected and delivered 10 times less benefit — and the reality was probably even worse than that. Each host country since has had to pay for the construction of World Cup infrastructure, been saddled with maintenance costs, and taken only a small share of the profits — a situation exacerbated by FIFA’s reluctance to consider local realities. White elephant stadiums have been a feature since the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, but the issue accelerated in South Africa, reaching its peak in Brazil with the Estadio Mane Garrincha in Brasilia. The second-most expensive stadium ever built when it was completed, within two years it was being used as a bus depot.
The hosts of the next two World Cups had no thought they would make a financial profit. Russia bid to host when Putin was still trying to appear a moderate with whom the West could do business — how better to demonstrate Russia’s worthiness than by genially putting on a tournament for the world? His foreign policy had changed by 2018, but the World Cup performed a useful function in normalizing Russia in the world’s imagination despite the fact that it had been occupying Crimea since 2014. Qatar ended up spending $220 billion on the tournament and related infrastructure, almost certainly more than every previous World Cup combined, partly for reasons of pride and self-projection and partly for self-preservation. As Qatar looks to diversify its economy away from fossil fuels, soccer is a useful way to integrate itself into the Western business community. The World Cup also offers visibility: far harder for a hostile regional power to invade if the world knows Qatar as an independent nation that stages major sporting events.
But after two World Cups in which FIFA arrived as a neocolonial power, made off with the loot, and left the hosts to foot the bill (South Africa and Brazil), and two in which the hosts were more concerned with political gains than financial losses (Russia and Qatar), where does that leave the 2026 tournament? The worries of various US host cities over costs are already clear. Foxborough is refusing to issue an entertainment license until FIFA comes up with guarantees over who is going to pay for security. Fanfests have been cancelled in New York/New Jersey and scaled back in Seattle and Boston, while the Bay Area is considering its options. The recognition is growing that there is no guaranteed financial gain for the host cities.
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East presents an unprecedented crisis. Never before has a host been involved in direct military action against a qualified nation. In response to the US bombing, Iran has retaliated against, among others, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar, all of which have qualified. Were Iran and the United States both to finish second in their groups, they would meet in Arlington, Texas, on July 3, but it seems probable Iran will become the first qualified team to withdraw from a World Cup since France and India pulled out over financial and logistical concerns in 1950.
Every previous host has pursued a basic policy of inviting the world to visit to experience its greatness and to return home spreading the word. Mussolini even subsidized travel for foreign tourists. Admittedly, there are obvious exceptions: Nobody could pretend, for instance, that Qatar extended a warm welcome to Jewish or gay fans, nor would Ukrainians have felt especially comfortable in Russia. But no previous World Cup host has ever appeared so overtly hostile to the rest of the world. If Denmark makes it through the interconfederational playoffs this month, how will its fans feel in a country that has threatened to annex Greenland? Even before the current spate of bombing, Iran was one of four qualified nations, along with Haiti, Senegal, and Ivory Coast, on the US banned list for visas — and there is a soft block on many others, with waits for visa interviews longer than the time between qualification being secured and the start of the tournament. Trump has said these visas will be expedited, but there is little evidence yet of that happening. The activity of ICE agents and exorbitant ticket prices are likely to dampen foreign demand even further.
So if the financial benefits are doubtful and the United States seemingly has little interest in projecting a positive image of itself to the world, what is the tournament for? Who benefits? FIFA does, at least financially, although a degree of reputational damage is possible, perhaps even likely. But the figure this tournament revolves around is Trump, the executive director of the World Cup task force. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been a regular visitor to the Oval Office, turned up at the Gaza peace talks in Egypt in October, appeared at the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace in February where he donned a red MAGA-style cap, and introduced the World Cup draw last December by presenting Trump with the first FIFA Peace Prize.
Given that soccer is Democrat-coded, a sport of the cosmopolitan middle classes, Trump’s embrace of the tournament is counterintuitive. But he seems to enjoy the attention. He may have been booed by Paris Saint-Germain fans at last year’s Club World Cup final, but by the end he could cavort on the stage, basking in the vicarious glow of victory, even pocketing a winner’s medal, the emperor in his coliseum.
Infantino has said every game at the World Cup is the equivalent of a Super Bowl. That’s 104 Super Bowls over the course of a month. The idea of being front and center at such a global megaevent seems to appeal to Trump. By the end, it might not just be Cole Palmer looking confused and appalled.
