THE UNITED STATES of America turns 250 next summer, and Donald Trump never saw a party to which he didn’t want to make himself central. Hence why he wants to commemorate himself, sorry, America’s semiquincentennial by building the Paris-style Arc de Trump in Washington.
But for global reach and projection beyond those who won’t be able to gaze slack-jawed at the arc in DC, Trump has the Fifa World Cup.
Yes, this is a World Cup hosted across the US, Canada, and Mexico, but really this is an American competition and, to be more precise, the MAGA World Cup. The queasy propinquity of Gianni Infantino has seen to this: the Fifa president is not merely embracing America, but Trump’s version of that.
At a public event in Miami in November, for instance, Infantino said “we should all support what [Trump] is doing because I think it’s looking pretty good”.
The Fifa president has become incredibly close to Trump, in a literal sense at the very least. He started the year three rows behind Barack Obama and George Bush on stage at Trump’s inauguration and went on to turn up three hours late for the annual Fifa congress as he was visiting Qatar and Saudi Arabia with Trump.
He was then in attendance at Trump’s Israel/Gaza peace talks in Egypt and was picked out by Trump during the Rwanda/Congo agreement on the eve of the Fifa World Cup draw.
Donald Trump receives the Fifa peace prize from Gianni Infantino. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
It was at that draw, of course, that Fifa heralded Trump with their inaugural Peace Prize, which was first announced less than a month after Trump was overlooked for the Nobel Prize.
Infantino was nothing like as publicly close to Joe Biden prior to Trump’s re-election, so perhaps he is reading from the same playbook as some political leaders do when it comes to dealing with Trump: flatter him and get close to him in the hope you can then temper some of his histrionics. (Infantino, in fairness, hasn’t yet followed NATO chief Mark Rutte in calling Trump, “Daddy.”)
Trump’s histrionics have the power to upend even an event as big as the forthcoming World Cup, and when it comes to previewing anything with Trump at its centre, the best advice is to expect the unexpected.
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Trump has, for instance, threatened to move game from cities, saying he might move games from Boston as part of an attack on the city’s democratic mayor, Michelle Wu. He has made the same threat against Seattle. Moving games at the 11th hour would, of course, be a logistical disaster for Fifa.
Trump has no legal power to actually move games because, unlike in 1994, the legal agreements around hosting have not been struck by Fifa with a single, umbrella organisation, but with each of the individual host cities.
But this won’t necessarily stop Trump making noise about moving games.
As with previous host agreements, Fifa have brokered for themselves a tax exemption for this tournament, and these breaks have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Fifa at recent World Cups. These exemptions have been legally assured and were approved by Trump during his first term, though given how sensitive and unpredictable he is about tariffs and any perception that he or the US are getting the raw end of any deal, it is worth monitoring whether the agreement stokes Trump’s ire as the tournament comes closer.
The biggest question, however, will revolve around whether how many fans can get to games at all, regardless of the American city in which they are staged.
Fifa have secured priority access for ticket-holders to the embassy interviews they need to obtain a visa to travel to the US, but that will only benefit the fans from countries who are guaranteed a visa.
As it stands, Iran and Haiti are two qualified nations who are on the US travel ban list, with Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire recently added, too.
While players, officials and direct family members of all four squads will be exempt and allowed to travel, the Iranian FA, for instance, reneged on a threatened boycott of the World Cup draw as the US did not grant visas to all of their travelling party.
Andrew Giuliani, the head of the White House task force on the World Cup, said people who were a “potential threat” to the US would not have their visas approved, but said international supporters who want to “spend your disposable income” were welcome.
But as it stands, supporters from four competing countries will not be allowed to attend games in the US, which makes Infantino’s claim that this will be “the most inclusive World Cup ever” ring very hollow.
Giuliani, meanwhile, has not ruled out ICE raids around World Cup games.
Infantino said he was not worried about ICE activity at the Club World Cup in the US earlier this year, but Human Rights Watch this month revealed the story of an asylum seeker who was detained and deported having attended the Club World Cup final in New Jersey this summer. The man in question was questioned by local police when he violated rules in flying a small drone to take a photo of himself with his two kids in the stadium car park.
Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Police asked him about his immigration status and then handed him over to ICE, who detained him for three months, at which point his asylum claim was denied by a judge and he was deported back to his country of origin, from which he and his family had fled in 2022, fearing for their lives.
Haiti’s games in Boston, Philadelphia, and Atlanta may be particularly relevant in this context, given the Trump administration are ending Temporary Protected Status for 340,000 Haitians in the United States, given all until 3 February to leave the country. If ICE are motivated to deport Haitians without legal immigration status in America, will they really stay away from games involving the Haitian national football team?
Aisde from Trump, Fifa have also bowed to the second great God of today’s America: The Market.
Hence Fifa have jacked up ticket prices, implemented dynamic pricing and taken control of the legal secondary resale market, a fact they have defended by saying it’s in line with American market practices. To which the question is: just because something is popular does not mean its right.
The outcry over prices for loyal, match-going supporters – who have seen the price of a final ticket jump by about 500% – led to a partial climbdown, where 10% of the tickets reserved for supporters will now be fixed at $60.
This has not quelled all the anger, though, and the newly-elected mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani has called for prices to be further slashed.
“A $60 “supporter ticket” for 1.6% of seats isn’t enough”, he posted on X. “Not when Fifa just set the highest ticket prices in World Cup history. Thousands spoke up demanding that this be a tournament that New Yorkers can afford.
“Here’s what we actually need: end dynamic pricing, cap resale prices, and set aside 15% of tickets for local fans at a discount. The beautiful game must be for everyone.”
Mamdani’s football bona fides are unimpeachable – he is an Arsenal fan and bought shares to rescue Spanish club Real Oviedo from bankruptcy in 2012 – so it will be fascinating to see how committed he is to fighting Fifa on this front. That Fifa would face and serious political opposition from a World Cup host is a pretty rare thing.
But for all of these possibilities and imponderables, one fact of the 2026 World Cup of we can be sure is by looking back at the presentation to Chelsea of the Club World Cup trophy earlier this year. Donald Trump will have no interest in getting off the stage.
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Rip-off ticket prices, ICE raids, moving fixtures: What to expect from the MAGA World Cup
THE UNITED STATES of America turns 250 next summer, and Donald Trump never saw a party to which he didn’t want to make himself central. Hence why he wants to commemorate himself, sorry, America’s semiquincentennial by building the Paris-style Arc de Trump in Washington.
But for global reach and projection beyond those who won’t be able to gaze slack-jawed at the arc in DC, Trump has the Fifa World Cup.
Yes, this is a World Cup hosted across the US, Canada, and Mexico, but really this is an American competition and, to be more precise, the MAGA World Cup. The queasy propinquity of Gianni Infantino has seen to this: the Fifa president is not merely embracing America, but Trump’s version of that.
At a public event in Miami in November, for instance, Infantino said “we should all support what [Trump] is doing because I think it’s looking pretty good”.
The Fifa president has become incredibly close to Trump, in a literal sense at the very least. He started the year three rows behind Barack Obama and George Bush on stage at Trump’s inauguration and went on to turn up three hours late for the annual Fifa congress as he was visiting Qatar and Saudi Arabia with Trump.
He was then in attendance at Trump’s Israel/Gaza peace talks in Egypt and was picked out by Trump during the Rwanda/Congo agreement on the eve of the Fifa World Cup draw.
It was at that draw, of course, that Fifa heralded Trump with their inaugural Peace Prize, which was first announced less than a month after Trump was overlooked for the Nobel Prize.
Infantino was nothing like as publicly close to Joe Biden prior to Trump’s re-election, so perhaps he is reading from the same playbook as some political leaders do when it comes to dealing with Trump: flatter him and get close to him in the hope you can then temper some of his histrionics. (Infantino, in fairness, hasn’t yet followed NATO chief Mark Rutte in calling Trump, “Daddy.”)
Trump’s histrionics have the power to upend even an event as big as the forthcoming World Cup, and when it comes to previewing anything with Trump at its centre, the best advice is to expect the unexpected.
Trump has, for instance, threatened to move game from cities, saying he might move games from Boston as part of an attack on the city’s democratic mayor, Michelle Wu. He has made the same threat against Seattle. Moving games at the 11th hour would, of course, be a logistical disaster for Fifa.
Trump has no legal power to actually move games because, unlike in 1994, the legal agreements around hosting have not been struck by Fifa with a single, umbrella organisation, but with each of the individual host cities.
But this won’t necessarily stop Trump making noise about moving games.
As with previous host agreements, Fifa have brokered for themselves a tax exemption for this tournament, and these breaks have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Fifa at recent World Cups. These exemptions have been legally assured and were approved by Trump during his first term, though given how sensitive and unpredictable he is about tariffs and any perception that he or the US are getting the raw end of any deal, it is worth monitoring whether the agreement stokes Trump’s ire as the tournament comes closer.
The biggest question, however, will revolve around whether how many fans can get to games at all, regardless of the American city in which they are staged.
Fifa have secured priority access for ticket-holders to the embassy interviews they need to obtain a visa to travel to the US, but that will only benefit the fans from countries who are guaranteed a visa.
As it stands, Iran and Haiti are two qualified nations who are on the US travel ban list, with Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire recently added, too.
While players, officials and direct family members of all four squads will be exempt and allowed to travel, the Iranian FA, for instance, reneged on a threatened boycott of the World Cup draw as the US did not grant visas to all of their travelling party.
Andrew Giuliani, the head of the White House task force on the World Cup, said people who were a “potential threat” to the US would not have their visas approved, but said international supporters who want to “spend your disposable income” were welcome.
But as it stands, supporters from four competing countries will not be allowed to attend games in the US, which makes Infantino’s claim that this will be “the most inclusive World Cup ever” ring very hollow.
Giuliani, meanwhile, has not ruled out ICE raids around World Cup games.
Infantino said he was not worried about ICE activity at the Club World Cup in the US earlier this year, but Human Rights Watch this month revealed the story of an asylum seeker who was detained and deported having attended the Club World Cup final in New Jersey this summer. The man in question was questioned by local police when he violated rules in flying a small drone to take a photo of himself with his two kids in the stadium car park.
Police asked him about his immigration status and then handed him over to ICE, who detained him for three months, at which point his asylum claim was denied by a judge and he was deported back to his country of origin, from which he and his family had fled in 2022, fearing for their lives.
Haiti’s games in Boston, Philadelphia, and Atlanta may be particularly relevant in this context, given the Trump administration are ending Temporary Protected Status for 340,000 Haitians in the United States, given all until 3 February to leave the country. If ICE are motivated to deport Haitians without legal immigration status in America, will they really stay away from games involving the Haitian national football team?
Aisde from Trump, Fifa have also bowed to the second great God of today’s America: The Market.
Hence Fifa have jacked up ticket prices, implemented dynamic pricing and taken control of the legal secondary resale market, a fact they have defended by saying it’s in line with American market practices. To which the question is: just because something is popular does not mean its right.
The outcry over prices for loyal, match-going supporters – who have seen the price of a final ticket jump by about 500% – led to a partial climbdown, where 10% of the tickets reserved for supporters will now be fixed at $60.
This has not quelled all the anger, though, and the newly-elected mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani has called for prices to be further slashed.
“A $60 “supporter ticket” for 1.6% of seats isn’t enough”, he posted on X. “Not when Fifa just set the highest ticket prices in World Cup history. Thousands spoke up demanding that this be a tournament that New Yorkers can afford.
“Here’s what we actually need: end dynamic pricing, cap resale prices, and set aside 15% of tickets for local fans at a discount. The beautiful game must be for everyone.”
Mamdani’s football bona fides are unimpeachable – he is an Arsenal fan and bought shares to rescue Spanish club Real Oviedo from bankruptcy in 2012 – so it will be fascinating to see how committed he is to fighting Fifa on this front. That Fifa would face and serious political opposition from a World Cup host is a pretty rare thing.
But for all of these possibilities and imponderables, one fact of the 2026 World Cup of we can be sure is by looking back at the presentation to Chelsea of the Club World Cup trophy earlier this year. Donald Trump will have no interest in getting off the stage.
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