By 1934, it was entirely evident what Benito Mussolini was up to. Italy’s dictator had already consolidated power, colonized Libya and annexed the city of Rijeka. He nevertheless got to stage the second-ever World Cup, managing it with a heavy hand and even supplanting the Jules Rimet trophy with a far larger one. Hosting and winning that World Cup didn’t sate his expansionist appetites. By the end of decade, Mussolini would take Ethiopia, annex Albania and back Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
It was equally well established in 1978 in Argentina that General Jorge Rafaél Videla’s military junta, which had taken over two years earlier, was maintaining its grip on power through systematic detention, torture and murder. Still, protestations from other nations were ignored and the World Cup kicked off.
“At last, the world can see the true face of Argentina,” said Fifa president João Havelange at the opening ceremony, newly decorated with a medal from Videla.
Argentina spared no expense in putting on its World Cup, even though the total cost was a state secret. But the right-wing government also didn’t bother to slow the pace at which it disappeared political dissidents and opponents. Germany captain Berti Vogts proclaimed that “Argentina is a country where order reigns. I haven’t seen a single political prisoner,” though, so no matter.
When Vladimir Putin presided over the opening ceremony to the 2018 World Cup, it had been four years since his forces annexed Crimea from Ukraine and he backed pro-Russian rebels in the Donbas region. Fifa didn’t mind.
The problematic nature of these events may have been obvious at the time, but took some time to be fully acknowledged; for there to be no mistaking the actions and intentions of the host government. Years from now, when we look back on the geopolitical context of the 2026 World Cup – shared with Canada and Mexico but hogged by the United States – we’ll likely place it in the same category as those others. Hopefully, we have perfect clarity, and this edition of the World Cup will take its place among the most shameful incarnations of the quadrennial tournament.
This conclusion was crystalized by last week’s forceful and bloody abduction of the sitting president of Venezuela and his wife, before US president Donald Trump announced that the socialist state was now effectively an American-run territory.
That was, of course, after Trump, or his henchmen, softened their support for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia; literally blew boats out of the water on mere suspicion of drug trafficking; threatened to invade Mexico and annex Canada (their World Cup co-hosts!), Greenland and the Panama Canal; and started a trade war with, well, basically everybody, disrupting the global economy.
We don’t yet know how far this administration, which promised isolationism but has instead delivered geopolitical mayhem, will go in a foreign policy that lacks any coherence beyond the governing assumption that it can do whatever it feels like. But it’s clear that it may just be getting started.
Still, the World Cup will proceed. Fifa president Gianni Infantino has been immovable in his support for Trump. Unlike Havelange and Videla, the medals and fake awards are going in the other direction.
It’s been some time since we had a World Cup without reasonable controversy. The 2010 and 2014 editions in South Africa and Brazil, respectively, were widely panned locally for the strain they put on nations with far more pressing needs. And yet those legitimate complaints seem quaint compared to the 2022 tournament in Qatar, acquired under well-documented corruption and leading directly to many deaths and human rights abuses. The 2030 tournament will inevitably grow notorious for spreading the thing out over three continents, greatly increasing the environmental impact giving the lie to any claims Fifa once made of caring for the climate. And then there’s the 2034 World Cup, which has already been signed over to the Saudi Arabia’s strongman de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman.
The US-dominated World Cup fits neatly into this run. This nation isn’t presently in a position to lecture anybody else on human rights – nor has it ever been. The Qataris and Saudis are sportswashing outliers no longer. This is just what the World Cup is now: a convenient vehicle for carrying the aims of dangerously self-interested people.
Perhaps some kind of boycott movement from fans toward Fifa events will gather steam, although the slow slide of acceptance to where we are suggests otherwise. One didn’t come off before Qatar, either, in spite of a lot of noise. It’s doubtful such a boycott would accomplish much by way of embarrassing the men, and the odd woman, who have killed off the parts of themselves that once felt shame anyway.
Soccer has fully gone the way of the Olympics and Formula 1, which long ago made their peace with whatever sordid baggage came attached to the highest bidder for their events.
And when the story is told of how the World Cup fully and finally lost its way, they will point to the 2026 edition, played in Canada and Mexico and – problematically, embarrassingly, irredeemably – these United States.
Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on May 12. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.
