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.”
Infantino is fond of describing the World Cup in messianic terms. The tournament, he said in 2024, “is a unique catalyst ... for positive social change and unity.” In New Jersey, at least, the tournament is proving to be exactly the opposite. The state reportedly is going to charge World Cup fans close to $150 for the 15-minute train ride from Penn Station in Manhattan to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey—a trip usually costs $12.90. But this is not a case of a blue state trying to get rich off of World Cup fans. Rather, New Jersey is just trying to cover the onerous cost of hosting eight of the tournament’s matches.
In a statement issued hours later, FIFA said it was “quite surprised” by the attack—on Friday the organization went even further, absurdly accusing New Jersey of a “chilling effect” on the tournament— and laboriously detailed negotiations over transit costs, effectively arguing that it’s not FIFA’s fault that Sherrill’s predecessors struck a deal she doesn’t like. FIFA also said it “is not aware of any other major event at [MetLife] where organizers were required to pay for fan transportation.”
Who are these fans? We can guess who they’re not. Fans from four qualifying countries—Haiti, Iran, Ivory Coast, and Senegal—currently face travel bans. If Ivorian and Senegalese fans do make it through customs, they will be required to submit bonds of up to $15,000, a burden that is also placed on those from Cape Verde and Algeria. As for Iran, its participation is still far from guaranteed, though FIFA, global soccer’s governing body, has repeatedly said that the team will compete despite the U.S. war against the country. (Trump has been far less welcoming: Last month he warned the Iranian team to stay away “for their own life and safety.”) Of course, many fans from countries that aren’t facing travel bans or onerous entry requirements may nonetheless be wary of traveling to the U.S. because of Trump’s belligerence toward other countries and his increasingly authoritarian immigration enforcement at home.
Where these conflicts go from here is anyone’s guess, but FIFA undoubtedly is taking the long view. It has been here before, and survived relatively unscathed. The lead-up to the 2022 tournament was also a public relations nightmare for its host nation, Qatar. In the weeks before kickoff, there was a flood of stories highlighting its exploitation of foreign workers (many of whom died building stadiums), its abysmal treatment of its LGBTQ population and women, and its generally poor human rights record. The situation grew so dire that Infantino had to step in. “Today I feel Qatari, I feel Arab, I feel African, I feel gay, I feel disabled, I feel a migrant worker,” he said at a press conference where he defended the host nation.
Qatar, of course, is an authoritarian country, so it was eager to launder its reputation through the riveting spectacle of the World Cup—just like Russia in 2018. But with two months before the start of the 2026 tournament, it’s not clear what the United States wants from the tournament. The U.S. is not yet Qatar, but it’s a lot more authoritarian than it was when, just a few weeks before the 2016 election, it won its bid as a co-host. For Trump and his administration, the World Cup is an opportunity not so much to launder his unsavory reputation as to embrace it: to take center stage as a global strongman. For Infantino and FIFA, it is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to rake in a fortune, as the tournament may never be held in such an unrestrained cesspool of capitalism again. But what does everyone else get out of it?
Americans are increasingly asking that question—but not Infantino and Trump. That question simply never has occurred to them.
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