In April, FIFA President Gianni Infantino spoke about the sense of community that accompanies the World Cup. “Too often, we forget that we should be happy,” he said. “We should try to enjoy the time that we are here, and the World Cup is exactly about that. It was like this in 2022, it will be like this in 2026. This for me, is the most important legacy in motion. Remind ourselves about enjoying being together, uniting the world, being happy, spending some good time together.”
Speaking at the UN headquarters, Infantino discussed the “greatest tournament we’ve ever seen”—the 2022 World Cup, hosted by Qatar—without any acknowledgement of migrant worker deaths or FIFA’s own banning of the pro-LGBTQIA+ messaging. Infantino continued to emphasize the importance of unity for this summer’s tournament, in which a whopping 48 teams are competing for the first time in World Cup history.
“We spend so much time in discussing what divides us, but actually we realise that when we put people together, what happens is that there are many more things that unite us than the things that divide us,” he said.
The divisive issues have already proven to be more potent than the unity that Infantino preaches. Although human rights action plans were presented guaranteeing protections, both on and off the field, the failure to keep many of those promises has left marginalized groups in the United States—and in Mexico and Canada—second-guessing their attendance to a world spectacle hosted in their very own backyard.
“Since awarding Trump the ‘FIFA Peace Prize’ in December, FIFA has gone silent on every concrete human rights promise it said it would stand up for,” Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, said in April. “The irony is that FIFA is still expecting ‘Human Rights Action Plans’ when the organization itself has taken no public action to address key risks and uphold the full spectrum of human rights at the world’s largest sporting event.” Infantino promised the United Nations unity and a remarkable sporting event in the 2026 World Cup. Yet lack of accountability has allowed for these promises to stay empty with more than half of the tournament left. Fans have been harassed. Team travel plans have been unfairly restricted. Even an official, the Somalian referee Omar Artan, was denied from working his first-ever World Cup on baseless suspicions of terrorism ties.
A tournament projecting a mirage of harmony has rapidly dissolved into another example of corruption within FIFA and a limpid display of the current political climate within the US, for the entire world to see.
In February, Brazilian superstar Vinícius Júnior was on the receiving end of a racist attack during a Champions League match. He was called a monkey five consecutive times by Argentinian winger Gianluca Prestianni. Kylian Mbappé, Vini’s teammate, was within earshot, later confirming that he heard the same thing. Prestianni claimed he used a homophobic slur instead and was later banned six matches by UEFA, Europe’s governing soccer body, based on that defense. Prestianni benefitted from ambiguity: He had covered his mouth while verbally assaulting Vini Jr, so there was no way to definitively confirm what he had said.
In response to the incident, a unanimous agreement was reached by the International Football Association Board: During this summer’s World Cup, a red card would be given to any player addressing the opposition while covering his mouth. So far, two red cards have been granted respectively towards Miguel Almiron–in Paraguay’s group stage match against Türkiye–and Piero Hincapié–in Ecuador’s Round of 32 loss against Mexico.
This is a solid step, but it’s also one that evades the real issue. No one from FIFA has addressed—or even acknowledged—how racism will be handled at the Mundial. In May, reports circulated on social media and online that five members of the Iraq men’s national team were denied visas to enter the United States. Upon their arrival the following month, vice captain Aymen Hussein was questioned for seven hours by immigration officials. Iran faced even greater roadblocks, with the national team being forced to relocate their training base to Tijuana, Mexico from the US only 17 days before the start of the tournament. Once the games started, it only got worse, with the team unable to arrive more than 24 hours before their match and being told to leave immediately after their final whistle.
The abhorrent and unfair travel conditions for Team Melli did not fostered any unity or solidarity among competing nations. “I haven’t heard anything from other coaches, and I’m sure they’re busy and preparing their own teams and we never expect them to have a reaction. . . . But if I had seen another team being treated the way we are being treated, I would say something,” head coach Amir Ghalenoei said in a press conference.
In addition, the Trump Administration had introduced immigration policies affecting 39 countries. Of the total 48 competing countries, four are subject to a full travel ban—Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, Iran, and Senegal—none of which, notably, are European nations. These bans were recently paired with a major Supreme Court decision allowing the Department of Homeland Security to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of over 1.3 million people, including roughly 350,000 Haitians, which came just a day after Haiti’s last group stage game.
Last year’s Club World Cup already showed that FIFA had no plan for dealing with the Trump administration’s xenophobic and nativist policies. Anti-racist messaging such as their “no racism” and “no discrimination” campaign was cancelled at that tournament, during which a fan was detained by ICE. This repeal of inclusive messaging joins a collective shift in American professional sports after the return of the Trump administration: The NFL does not display “End Racism” messaging on their fields anymore; NHL teams have erased Pride Nights from their respective schedules; and the DOJ has even recently launched an investigation in defense of San Francisco Giants players who altered their pride hats with Bible verses.
This summer, FIFA guaranteed acknowledgement and togetherness but instead delivered on neither. Its inaction could be considered a promotion of political neutrality, however it only erases the oppression faced by marginalized groups and silences their respective experiences. In doing so, they fostered a platform for the exact opposite.
During the tournament, Ghalenoei urged Infantino and FIFA “to not let the hosts treat teams and players the same way in the future” and “actually stand up to such behaviour.” His captain, Mehdi Taremi, went on to coin the tournament as “a disaster” and that the unfair circumstances led him to believe that the US and FIFA would “like” for Iran to be eliminated. Upon Iran’s World Cup exit, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin boisterously vindicated this sentiment.
“I’m just glad they’re done, and they’re not coming back,” Mullin said. “I was so happy when we were able to pull their visas and said they could leave U.S. soil, and I might have sung a song or two, or maybe danced a happy dance.”
For the first time in history, the bidding process for the 2026 World Cup incorporated human rights requirements. All host city committees were to develop individual Human Rights Action Plans with the help of local government, community groups and the tournament itself. The presented framework would address groups and populations with a higher risk of facing discrimination such as immigrants, asylum seekers and members of the LGBTQ community.
Only Atlanta’s host city committee ultimately presented action plans that include consideration of the LGBTQIA+ community. At present, there is not a single FIFA social impact campaign that addresses prejudice towards the queer community. A past social campaign, Unite for Inclusion, included the LGBTQ community in its messaging, but it is not a part of this year’s tournament. This exclusion is striking considering the homophobia that persists in world football, whether from El Tri supporters chanting the gay slur “puto”—only recently addressed through last-ditch programming from the Mexico FA—or Colombian fans jumping to homophobic chants against Uzbekistan.
The World Cup is taking place during Pride month; LGBTQ fans have had little reassurance about whether they will be able to safely celebrate their identity. Seattle’s organizing committee had advertised the June 26 group-stage game between Egypt and Iran as a “Pride Match,” celebrating queer identity and culture. Both countries have criminalized homosexuality—one branding it a moral crime, the other as punishable by death—and last year, both the Egyptian and Iranian FA objected to playing a match which displays “any activities promoting LGBTQ” and the EFA went on to specify in a letter to FIFA that such displays could “provoke cultural and religious sensitivities among fans.” A petition signed by more than 124,000 people then called for the removal of the “Pride” aspect. In the past, FIFA has adjusted to the host country’s cultural values, removing the “One Love” armband and banning alcoholic beverages at the 2022 Qatar World Cup. But this time, they insisted that it would not take a side in the matter.
Infantino and FIFA’s complicity—and lack of substantial action altogether—speaks volumes. Even with displays of unity between supporters of different nations, from the harmonious comradery of South Korean and Mexican fans or Europeans being put on to American delicacies by the host fans such as Raising Cane’s, these instances do not erase the hotbed of discrimination in which this tournament yet again finds itself being played within.
The U.S. is unable to foster a tournament of global unity because of its own hardened identity of nationalism and exceptionalism, bolstered by FIFA’s claim to political neutrality. Instead, this year’s edition is quite literally the exact opposite. This collaboration not only pulls back the curtain regarding how little FIFA truly cares about “unity” and the fan/player experience, and further confirms their financially corrupt and bigoted identity. An American president who has committed to the erasure of queer people and racist travel bans was honored by FIFA with the inaugural “Peace Prize-Football Unites the World.”
FIFA’s definition of unity does not include marginalized groups—if it exists at all—nor does it see them as anything more than an end to a means. Soccer, as a sport, is culturally transient and the administration of the beautiful game is aware of this fact. As a result, FIFA’s efforts toward cultural inclusion and unity begin and end with the sport itself; ready as ever to champion events that bear no limits on who is discriminated against to simply secure a check.