The 2026 World Cup was supposed to provide relief from the tournament’s bedevilment by autocratic regimes, following the outrage that greeted FIFA’s selection of Russia for 2018 host and Qatar for 2022. As it happened, hosting rights were awarded to the United States, Canada, and Mexico in 2018, during Donald Trump’s first term, in a process delayed by the scandal that forced FIFA president Sepp Blatter to resign and be replaced by Gianni Infantino.

The tournament was intended to promote unity among the North American nations, even if most of it would happen in the United States. But hopes that it would prove less charged than recent World Cups were dashed when Trump returned to power in January 2025, threatening to attack Mexico and invade Canada. Months before kickoff, the United States had declared war on another participant, Iran — adding to worries about ICE raids and border closures, FIFA’s decision to open an office in Trump Tower, and its awarding of a spurious “FIFA Peace Prize” to Trump. Russia’s and Qatar’s World Cups, the consensus went, had been exercises in “sportswashing,” building support for their governments even as controversies over LGBTQ and alcohol policies went unresolved. The United States, it seemed, was using this World Cup to do the opposite — bending the tournament to its will as a way of asserting its position as the only global superpower.

There is often catastrophizing before any global sports tournament, either about the host’s government or its ability to organize the event. But the concerns here were as much about FIFA as the United States. Having spent months brownnosing Trump — letting him present the new Club World Cup trophy at the final in New Jersey after keeping it in the Oval Office for months — it seemed that FIFA was willing to do anything for its American hosts. There was no question of FIFA suspending the United States or Israel for their wars of aggression, as it had Russia. Instead the organization threatened Iran with sanctions if it pulled out of the tournament.