Trump’s World – When the 2026 World Cup finals open on Thursday, the spectacle arrives with a political weight attached: Donald Trump’s unexpected place in the tournament orbit, Gianni Infantino’s close ties to him, and a cascade of immigration, security, pricing, and diploma
The 2026 World Cup finals open on Thursday, but the first thing many people seem to be counting down isn’t a kickoff.
For weeks. the tournament has been shadowed by questions about who feels welcome. who can afford to watch. and why politics keeps walking into the frame. Donald Trump, who had once said he wouldn’t be around because of U.S. presidential term limits. is now poised to take part anyway—his political comeback buying him “extra time and a role in the massive soccer extravaganza. ” as he has made clear he values global stages.
Trump had lamented in 2018—when the U.S. won the right to co-host the World Cup finals this year—that “I won’t be here.” The reason, then, was simple: presidential term limits. But his return to the White House as only the second president to win two nonconsecutive terms changed the math.
In the months leading up to the tournament, Trump has leaned into that new access. He displayed a gleaming replica World Cup in the Oval Office. He welcomed FIFA President Gianni Infantino into his orbit. and after he presented Chelsea with the trophy in a FIFA club tournament in the United States last year. he celebrated with the team “like he’d scored the winning goal.”.
Still, critics abroad are likely to read the moment through a different lens: not enthusiasm for football, but unease at what they see as the discord of Trump’s second term. The World Cup finals arrive as his political star faces a downturn at home and reverses overseas.
That tension has been sharpened by FIFA’s own relationship with Trump. Infantino’s decision to award Trump an inaugural FIFA Peace Prize—after Trump’s friend was passed over for the Nobel version—now looks awkward to many in the glare of fresh conflicts tied to the president’s foreign policy. Trump launched military strikes against another World Cup qualifying nation. Iran. and the timing has made the Peace Prize feel less like symbolism and more like a mismatch.
Then there are the ripple effects that reach the tournament gate itself.
Trump’s hardline immigration policies have already left some foreign fans feeling unwelcome in the United States. A respected Somali referee was refused entry during a period when the administration is accusing Somalis in Minnesota of fraud—a claim the community denies. The Senegalese team. meanwhile. reportedly endured harsh security checks when arriving for its pre-World Cup camp. though the federation said it anticipated the security procedure and deemed it normal.
Iran also said Tuesday that its ticket allocation for its three group games in the United States had been canceled.
Those disputes feed into wider fears about security sweeps during matches. Concerns have been raised that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers could conduct sweeps for undocumented migrants at games involving South American teams with large followings in the United States. The administration has tried to tamp down those fears.
For fans watching from the stands, affordability is its own wall. Ticket prices have soared to the point that many people are priced out of games. triggering accusations that FIFA is seeing the World Cup finals more as a money grab than a celebration for football’s traditionally working-class supporters. The cost has even reached the White House. Trump balked at tickets costing $1. 000 for the first Team USA game. telling the New York Post: “I would certainly like to be there. but I wouldn’t pay it either. to be honest with you.”.
The political atmosphere around the tournament is also tied to the broader climate of Trump’s second term. He has slapped tariffs on competing economies and lambasted the societies of close allies. creating a sense of global tension that sits uneasily with FIFA’s repeated claims to promote unity and joy. At one point, there was even talk of a European boycott after Trump demanded Denmark hand over Greenland.
World Cup politics are not new. The United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The last World Cup in Qatar was clouded by accusations of human rights abuses, including the deaths of migrant workers during the construction of stadiums.
But this tournament’s added ingredient—Trump himself—has concentrated attention on FIFA’s leadership and its choices.
Infantino’s presence has been hard to miss in Washington and Mar-a-Lago. He showed up at Trump’s Gaza peace summit in Egypt last year. After Trump’s second-term inaugural rally. he declared on Instagram: “Together. we will make not only America great again. but also the entire world.” For critics. that sounded like something more than sport.
FIFA’s statutes stress that it “remains ‘neutral in matters of politics.’” Infantino, however, defended his friendship with Trump at a meeting in Northern Ireland last year, saying, “I think it is absolutely crucial for the success of a World Cup to have a close relationship with the president.”
Even so, the eve-of-tournament controversies have sharpened the question of how much leverage FIFA actually gains with Trump. Alexander Cooley—described as a senior nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and also a professor of political science at Barnard College—put it this way: “Infantino might say. ‘(This is) what do I have to do as president of this organization. to secure political support. so that everything goes smoothly. ’” adding that FIFA may have walked into a political trap.
Cooley said, “I think what you’re seeing is that the Trump administration really doesn’t care about global public opinion.”
He also argued that Trump’s team might be making a classic immigration play for the president’s base with the treatment of World Cup fans. delegations. and referees. “If the world is up in arms or disappointed in that. who cares?” Cooley said. paraphrasing what he suggested could be administration thinking.
The World Cup finals are widely treated as the largest sporting event on earth. According to FIFA, 1.5 billion viewers watched the final in Qatar in 2022. Trump has often marveled at the scale. Last year in the Oval Office, he said, “(It’s) like three Super Bowls every day for a month.”
He is a sports fan with a talent for turning attention into momentum. and the size of the World Cup is precisely the kind of audience he tends to seek. During his first term. he frequently used sports to hit cultural and political nerves—slamming former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players who took a knee to protest police brutality.
That habit may carry into the tournament. Trump can be expected to weigh in throughout on social media or over on- or off-field controversies, using sports as a platform for messaging. Yet mixing sports and politics can also provoke backlash.
He was “brutally booed” after showing up at an NBA Finals game in New York on Monday night. And the impact has already been seen in hockey this year. The U.S. hockey triumph over Canada in the final of the Winter Olympics turned a moment of national unity into political division after Trump and his FBI Director Kash Patel inserted themselves into the team’s victory celebrations.
The tension around the World Cup is part of a longer pattern. too—leaders have long tried to exploit the attention that comes with football’s biggest stage. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson wrapped himself in the flag after England’s 1966 World Cup triumph. Argentina’s junta used the country’s win as hosts in 1978 as propaganda. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hosting of the 2018 World Cup was framed as a bid to restore prestige after he was ostracized for annexing Crimea. Critics have dismissed Qatar’s World Cup and the forthcoming 2034 tournament in Saudi Arabia as reputational “sports washing” by anti-democratic regimes.
Some critics say Infantino sees himself as a geopolitical figure as much as a footballing one. His closeness to leaders like Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is cited as part of an era where multibillionaire owners and Middle Eastern wealth funds shape top clubs. while strongmen and oligarchs dominate politics and corporate life.
Still, the most enduring moments in major tournaments tend to fight back against politics. World Cups are defined by flashes on the pitch—Johan Cruyff’s bamboozling turn at the 1974 finals, or Paolo Rossi’s goal-scoring rout that led Italy to the title in 1982.
When controversy lasts, it is often because of play rather than policy: Argentine Diego Maradona’s “hand of God” handball goal in the 1986 quarter-final against England, or Zinedine Zidane’s stunning head butt that helped consign France to defeat to Italy in the 2006 final.
Infantino, for his part, has argued that political furor can fade once football starts. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this year. he said that in Qatar. the political intensity faded once the tournament kicked off. “When the ball started rolling, and the magic started, we had virtually no incidents,” he said.
The next month will test that promise. For some, the World Cup may still deliver the kind of second-by-second brilliance that makes the world stand still. For others. the opening whistle could simply mark the point when politics and access—and the people who feel excluded by them—become impossible to ignore again.
Donald Trump Gianni Infantino 2026 World Cup immigration policies FIFA Peace Prize Iran tickets ICE ticket prices World Cup politics Qatar 2022 sports washing