Even Donald Trump Couldn’t Ruin the World Cup
Donald Trump and his ally, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, have plumbed new depths with their political antics before and during the World Cup. But as David Goldblatt insists, they still couldn’t destroy the moments of collective joy it gives us.
Football has the remarkable capacity to bring moments of resistance, of challenge, of joy, of beauty in an ugly world. (Julian Finney / FIFA via Getty Images)
As the World Cup comes to an end, we’ve seen unprecedented levels of direct political interference in the organization of the tournament. FIFA president Gianni Infantino gave his friend Donald Trump a blank check to exclude anyone he liked from the United States, even referees, and Trump himself notoriously weighed in after a US player received a red card before their game against Belgium.
We spoke to football historian David Goldblatt about the way this World Cup has unfolded and whether anything can be done to break the stranglehold of figures like Infantino on the game. This is an edited transcript from Jacobin’s Long Reads podcast. You can listen to the interview here.
Daniel Finn
This isn’t the first time the World Cup has been staged in a controversial host country: going back to the early years of the competition, you had the World Cup in Italy under Benito Mussolini in 1934, then you had it in Argentina under the military regime in 1978, and of course we’ve had Russia and Qatar in the last decade. How does this experience compare with those?
David Goldblatt
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