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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/Sparky-moon on 2026-01-27 10:50:39+00:00.
A country where safety is under threat from federal violence on the streets is not fit to stage soccer’s showpiece event
Removing the United States as co-host of the 2026 World Cup would hurt for pretty much everyone. Fans would miss out on seeing the sport’s pinnacle in their home towns (or somewhere nearby). Cities and businesses small and large would lose the financial benefits they had banked on. It would be a logistical and political nightmare on an international scale, the likes of which have never been seen before in sports. It would be eminently sad. And it would be entirely justified.
It brings me no pleasure to say this. The United States has been eager to host a men’s World Cup for more than a decade and a half. The desire survived and even grew after 2010’s failure to out-bid Russia and Qatar (in public and behind closed doors) for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. With hosting rights for 2026 later secured alongside Canada and Mexico, the US soccer scene prepared to show off that the sport is now part of the nation’s fabric, 32 years after hosting the tournament for the first time in 1994. Soccer’s growing popularity in America has helped inspire other US sports to try new formats, encouraged us to engage more fully with the world in a sporting context, and has been at the center of conversations about our society and culture. The 2026 World Cup was seen as the best chance for the world to fully experience not just how much the US has improved at soccer, but how much soccer has improved the US.
I have not been immune to this Pollyannaish outlook. Much of my career covering American soccer has been predicated on the idea that the sport will continue to grow in the US. The 2026 World Cup is central to that hope. I can admit that I have a vested interest in this tournament’s success. As a lifelong fan, the World Cup landing here was a dream come true. As a professional, I hoped it would create millions of new North American soccer fans who will want to read and watch and listen to journalism about the sport for the rest of their lives.
Perhaps I was naive. The tournament may create some of those fans, but at what cost? Exorbitant ticket prices have cut out the game’s grassroots. Onerous demands on cities have siphoned public money. Fifa has boosted an openly corrupt administration at every turn. Now wanton federal violence has made it difficult to justify having the World Cup here at all. Safety, justice, freedom, the continued functioning of society – these are all under threat. Even to many soccer fans in the US, the game once called “the most important of the least important things” now seems just plain unimportant.
Federal agents have killed two innocent people in Minneapolis in the last three weeks. Neither was threatening the paramilitary forces who shot them. We know these things because we have seen them play out on video after sickening video, from multiple angles, slowed down and refocused and analysed. Yet the most senior governmental figures want us to believe that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were “domestic terrorists”. That they were, in fact the aggressors – in cold contrast to the mountain of available evidence. It would be reasonable to assume that those who disregard the truth so blatantly can also not be trusted to host a safe and secure World Cup.
And then there is the wider picture. Thirty-two people died in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in 2025 alone. The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to tracking US gun violence, reports that immigration officers shot at people 19 times since the start of the crackdown – figures it assumes are an undercount. These include three killings in 2025, now up to at least five with the Minnesota deaths. Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has resulted in more detentions of people with no criminal record than any other category – despite its stated aim of ridding the country of criminals and claimed successes in doing so. The raids resulting in all of this have largely targeted Democratic-leaning metro areas – which 10 of the 11 US World Cup host cities are (the Dallas metroplex being the one outlier). Yet “the most important message that football can convey right now is one of peace and unity,” Fifa president Gianni Infantino said last year.
How can soccer do that when its showpiece event is in a country led by an administration intent on division? A country that has captured a foreign leader, possibly in violation of international law. A country that has threatened supposed allies with military action over control of a foreign territory. A country that has picked seemingly endless fights, including with its World Cup cohosts – the very countries it’s meant to be standing alongside and welcoming the world’s soccer fans.
Are these the actions of a safe country, prepared to handle an influx of foreign visitors? Is this the kind of place you’d expect someone would want to spend many thousands of dollars to visit, even before they’ve ponied up for the games themselves? I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I sympathise with Sepp Blatter on this one.
There have been discussions of a boycott in some form; a mild clamor, if that. If that actually happens among enough countries, Fifa’s hand could be forced. But as justified as that would be, that’s hard to even imagine. Holding World Cups in autocratic or destructive countries is nothing new. A boycott would mean revenue lost and a schedule that will be near-impossible to reconfigure. And there’s a feeling at soccer’s highest levels that, no matter which government Fifa cosies up to, the sport itself will escape unscathed.
“With all due respect to current world leaders, football is bigger than them,” Concacaf president Victor Montagliani said last year at a conference. “Football will survive their regime and their government and their slogans.”
But in the meantime, football’s main event is at least partly under this administration’s control. Trump himself said last year that if cities are deemed to be too dangerous, or otherwise unfit for hosting, “We’re going to move the event to some place where it’s going to be appreciated and safe.”
Trump, of course, meant moving World Cup matches to other US cities. But it would be hard to argue if the World Cup was moved out of the US entirely.