March 31, 2025
The country has proven itself incapable of not abducting and imprisoning people entering it—boycotting US matches avoids putting teams, their families, and fans in danger.
Countless soccer fans across the globe are planning on entering the United States in droves for the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by North America, with games being staged in Mexico, Canada, and primarily the United States.
But as we’ve seen recently, the treatment of people as they are entering this country has borne more resemblance to airports in Tel Aviv or Pinochet’s Chile than those in a democratic country. The price for wanting to visit the US has meant having your electronics searched, your politics interrogated, or getting strip-searched and left naked in a back room at Logan Airport.
These are things that have happened to people from Western Europe. Now, imagine what could happen to fans from the Middle East. Will an interrogation land them in a holding cell in a remote Louisiana facility, like the one Mahmoud Khalil, Alireza Daroudi, and Rumeysa Ozturk are being held in? What about the thousands of expected visitors from South America, which will likely include young men who happen to have tattoos—will they find themselves “lost” in a system that eventually sends them to an El Salvadoran slave labor camp? Consider the Canadian actor who was detained by ICE for more than two weeks after she tried to cross the border. Will incoming visitors feel, as she wrote of the experience, “like we had all been kidnapped, thrown into some sort of sick psychological experiment meant to strip us of every ounce of strength and dignity”? What about fans from countries like Iran, which just qualified for the 2026 World Cup? And what about those from the 43 countries on Trump’s draft list of travel-banned nations?
Given this, for the safety of the players, their families, and fans, games scheduled to be played in the United States must be moved to Canada and Mexico, and every qualifying country should say that they will boycott the World Cup if they aren’t.
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It’s not just global soccer fans tuned in to the US’s recent depravities who are harboring serious concerns. The US Travel Association’s Commission on Seamless and Secure Travel recently sounded the alarm, noting that the glory days for US tourism are in the rear-view mirror. The US ceded its position as top destination for global travel in 2018, halfway through Trump 1.0, sliding behind countries like France and Spain in terms of international visitors. The US’s “market share” of global travel has shriveled, falling from 12.8 percent in 2015 to 9.1 percent today. The commission projects that China will surpass the United States in the coming decade.
The report notes that “the 2026 FIFA World Cup is expected to attract more than six million visitors to the U.S. According to FIFA, eight of the top 15 countries that have traveled to attend previous World Cups are non-VWP [Visa Waiver Program] countries that will need visitor visas to attend in the U.S.” With the capacity of the US federal government debilitated by Elon Musk and his DOGE-bags, the visa application system is already careening toward disaster—right before it needs to shift into high gear to process potential World Cup tourists.
Feeling the political heat, Trump issued an executive order creating a White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026. The task force is housed in the Department of Homeland Security, with Trump serving as the chair (and Vice President JD Vance as vice chair), presumably during his time off from running the Kennedy Center and tanking the economy.
Given that ICE is being used as a masked abduction force, and given “border czar” Tom Homan’s contempt for the courts, it is unconscionable to encourage people to visit this country. Some respond to this blithely by pointing out that FIFA stages the World Cup in autocratic countries all the time. But saying, “What about Russia, what about Qatar?” elides the fact that—however brutal these countries were to their workers, and however repressive they were toward their citizens—players, coaches, and tourists were treated like VIPs, afforded the privilege of ignoring the conditions of the host country, and allowed to focus on soccer. In Russia and Qatar, World Cup tickets were tantamount to visas. That will most assuredly not be the case under Trump.
For many globe-trotting soccer fans, the chickens have now come home to roost. They said nothing when autocracy made the World Cup pleasant and quiet for tourists. Now, US autocracy, armed with hyper-nationalism, can send them, potentially, to prison without due process. First, they came for them. Now, they’re coming for you.
Don’t expect any resistance from FIFA or its president, Gianni “Johnny Boy” Infantino. While FIFA’s leaders have been sketchy long before him, Johnny Boy is the first to decide that cozying up to the United States, at the expense of the world, is the wisest course of action. Infantino revved up the sycophancy machine even before the Electoral College issued its final tally, posting on Instagram, “We will have a great FIFA World Cup and a great FIFA Club World Cup in the 🇺🇸 United States of America!🤝” FIFA’s president shared six photographs featuring himself alongside Trump, grinning, gripping hands, and even donning a specially made “Trump 26” World Cup jersey. Infantino was rewarded with a special seat at Trump’s inauguration, his unmistakable pate bobbing only a few rows behind the oligarchs in the front row and the former US presidents who were in attendance. Of course, Infantino posted about it on Instagram.
Starting now, we need to push international sports federations to put in writing how their politics and policies will change to ensure the safety of not only tourists, but the players, coaches, and their families. They need to provide answers in writing or say directly that it’s not safe for foreign nationals to attend. Self-interest alone should keep countries away from the United States like the plague. (Although, thanks to Robert F Kennedy Jr., by 2026, plague might be on the table as well.)
These federations should listen to the statement just made by the seven teams that make up the British Columbia–based Eves of Destruction roller derby federation. The 130-person league made the decision that it could no longer tell its players to cross the border to compete in the United States. This “preemptive safety call” was not made in protest of Trump or in solidarity with those affected by the atrocities of the US government. It was made because the Eves of Destruction believed they could not guarantee the safety of their players—particularly their trans players—and coaches crossing the border into the United States. Unfortunately, they are correct. And increasingly, they are not alone.
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It’s no wonder that Canada, alongside numerous European countries, have issued travel advisories for the United States. This includes longtime allies like Denmark, Germany, Finland, and the United Kingdom. Leaders from these countries realize that they can no longer guarantee the safety of their citizens, should they attempt to enter the United States. Why would they subject their citizens to the “sick psychological experiment” unfolding under Trump? The very real fear is that their compatriots’ identification cards could be seized, and they could end up, without a trial, in some grim ICE gulag in perpetuity. This is now the reality of the United States.
People in this country do seem to be waking up to what we have become—now international sports federations need to do the same. If we continue acting like a pariah nation and a rogue state, then the rest of the world should act accordingly by boycotting World Cup matches taking place in the US. Attend matches in Mexico and Canada instead, and send the message that you refuse to support neofascist sportswashing.
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