Months before the 2026 World Cup got underway, senior figures within Fifa already found the planning hadn’t been going “as expected”. Then the United States attacked Iran at the end of February — a host nation starting a war against one of the participant nations, an event utterly unprecedented in the tournament’s 92-year history.
If it were almost any other country, the debate would be about moving the tournament or boycotting it. But the 2026 World Cup, hosted jointly by Canada, Mexico and the United States, was supposed to be a return to the “familiar” — a low-risk, high-reward venture after the politicised tournaments in Russia and Qatar.
“US attack on Iran makes 2026 World Cup most politicised ever, with Amnesty citing human rights emergency.”
Instead, critics say it has become even more politicised. An Amnesty report described the USA as “facing a human rights emergency” around the World Cup, pointing to the “chilling threat” posed to fans and players by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The promise in the bid-book of “low-risk and operational certainty” has been overshadowed by a series of what tournament figures privately call “unprecedented” issues.
Meanwhile, the record revenue projections of $14bn have created a cost prohibitive to football’s global support, with ticket prices soaring. The tournament’s expansion to an obscene size risks diluting the competition itself, according to Miguel Delaney of The Independent.
Even before the US-Iran conflict, the planning had been fraught. The 2026 tournament was intended to be a clean break from the “slave labour” allegations that stained Qatar and the authoritarianism of Russia. Instead, it has thrown up more problems than any World Cup in history, with President Donald Trump’s determination to create a “Maga World Cup” adding a distinctly political flavour.
As the opening ceremony takes place in Mexico City this week, the football world watches a tournament that, far from focusing on the game and the money it generates, has become a lightning rod for human rights, geopolitics and cost-of-living debates. The question of whether Fifa can ever stage a depoliticised World Cup remains unanswered.