Even the Nazis tried to tone things down before the 1936 Olympics.
The Third Reich removed antisemitic signs and temporarily suspended anti-homosexuality laws to soften its image for foreign visitors.
By contrast, the 2026 men's World Cup is being co-hosted in a country utterly indifferent to what a foreign visitor might think.
The US of Donald Trump actively wants you to see the darkness in its heart.
Visa Restrictions and Detentions
The administration turned away Omar Abdulkadir Artan, a Somali referee accredited by FIFA, just days before the tournament.
Trump has previously described Somalis as “garbage” and “crooks”.
“We want to make sure we are not going to allow a soccer tournament to be the opportunity for terrorists to potentially get in the country,” said Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House World Cup task force.
The vice-captain of Iraq was detained for seven hours on arrival.
Thirteen members of the Iranian delegation are still waiting for visas, and their fan ticket allocation has been revoked.
According to the BBC, 11 of the 48 participating countries – all from the global south – face travel restrictions or unusually high visa rejection rates.
FIFA's Reversed Power Balance
FIFA has rarely been shy of using leverage over past host countries. In 2014 it threatened to strip Curitiba of hosting rights over stadium delays.
In 2018 it persuaded Russia to relax immigration laws for visa-free fan entry and intervened to overturn a ban on journalist Hajo Seppelt.
“Freedom of the press is very important to FIFA,” it said then – a statement that has not aged well.
FIFA could do these things because it dealt with countries seeking soft power, validation, and tourism revenue.
Since 2010, every men's World Cup host needed FIFA more than FIFA needed it.
The US may be the first host country where this balance is reversed.
It doesn't need the money; according to a Saxo Bank report, the anticipated benefit is less than 0.1% of GDP and “is not a meaningful growth driver”.
But FIFA definitely needs the money.
Unlocking US sporting economy revenue streams is Gianni Infantino's best chance to maintain growth that buttresses his power base.
The 2030 World Cup – in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay – is already forecast to generate higher costs and lower ticket revenue, with shortfalls to be made up from marketing and broadcast rights.
With the World Cup expanded to 48 teams, there is a dwindling pool of countries with the size, means, and infrastructure to host.
FIFA now needs the US far more than the US needs FIFA.
Will FIFA raise its voice if immigration raids take place at stadiums? What if protesters demonstrate near a World Cup venue?
In reality, FIFA has already articulated its worldview.
By parroting “football unites the world” like a malfunctioning pull-string doll, Infantino tacitly expresses that some people are not considered part of the world.
To the jailed dissidents of Russia and migrant workers of Qatar, we can add the imagined enemies of the Trump White House: Senegalese supporters, reporters asking questions, or a Somali referee on the greatest honor of his professional life.
The only meaningful solution – a smaller, more modest World Cup less beholden to autocratic power – is also the only solution that can be ruled out.
This power imbalance may set a template for subsequent events.
Saudi Arabia 2034 will have noted FIFA's prostration, its spinelessness in the face of hard autocratic power and commercial imperative.
For a generation, FIFA participated in what academic Martin Müller described as “event seizure” – big sporting events taking possession of host cities, rewriting laws, emptying budgets.
Here, the opposite has occurred.
The World Cup has not seized control of the US.
Instead, the US has seized control of the World Cup, turning this cherished global heirloom a shade of MAGA.
If you still regard sporting spectacle as an escape from politics, enjoy your World Cup of games split into four quarters, decimated by heat and exhaustion, compromised by an unfair qualification process.
Enjoy the largely meaningless group stage, thousands of empty seats, masked police standing just at the edge of shot, and long lingering shots of Infantino and JD Vance in the stands.
Infantino is the symptom rather than the disease.
Yet, given his self-image as a messianic pan-global statesman, there is irony that this summer will cement his legacy as one of sport's greatest cowards: a weak man who lost control of his own tournament.
