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Behold the Joyless World Cup The Trump administration has long made it clear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will play a “key part” of World Cup security, according to the acting head of the agency. Recently, Markwayne Mullin, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed that ICE would be on duty at World Cup stadiums and refused to take immigration arrests off the table. In other words, flak-jacketed security agents, masked up like they just carried off a diamond heist, could be a common sight at this summer’s World Cup. Not exactly a welcome mat for the world. This after Vice President JD Vance made cringeworthy jokes about ICE detaining World Cup tourists. At a press conference in May 2025, he said, “I know we’ll have visitors probably from close to 100 countries. We want them to come. We want them to celebrate. We want them to watch the game. But, when the time is up, they’ll have to go home. Otherwise they’ll have to talk to [then Department of Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi] Noem.” More veiled threat than comedic jape, Vance’s words should put World Cup visitors on high alert. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has threatened war crimes against Iran, a participating nation in this World Cup. In addition, his administration has orchestrated the droning of alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean, sanctioned the International Criminal Court, cozied up to some of the most brutal dictators, and armed the Israeli genocide in Gaza. These international aggressions—all led by Donald Trump, the “winner” of the utterly fallacious “FIFA Peace Prize”—combined with ICE’s terror campaign at home—with masked agents from ICE marauding through city after city—is evidence of what Nikhil Pal Singh calls in Equator, “homeland empire.” This is the process where the Trump regime is “collapsing the foreign and the domestic” forms of war and repression “in a single domain of impunity.” Such “impunity” is far from the ideal environment in which to host a sporting event that is supposed to bring the world together. Priced Out Meanwhile the FIFA greed machine is thrumming at full throttle. In the United States, FIFA has instituted “dynamic pricing,” which sounds kind of nice until you realize that it’s using algorithms to squeeze every possible penny from ticket buyers. This led to one ticket for the World Cup final appearing on the resale market for a whopping $11.5 million. Because FIFA collects 15 percent from both the seller and buyer in the secondary market, that means it could collect $3.45 million from one ticket alone. World Cup ticket prices appear to be dropping, at least for some matches, but they are still out of reach for working-class residents in host cities. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has seen a political opportunity in taking on the greed machine. By exerting public pressure, he was able to squeeze 1,000 $50 tickets out of FIFA, which he’ll distribute to New Yorkers through a ballot system. But other host cities have yet to aggressively challenge FIFA’s ticket costs, and galactic ticket prices are the norm. The highest-price ticket for the World Cup final on FIFA’s official platform is $10,990, up from $1,600 at the Qatar 2022 final only four years ago. The cheapest ticket to the final is $5,785. Working people need not apply. By comparison, as Sean Jacobs and Anna Olimpia de Moura Leite note in 11 Named People, “In past World Cups, FIFA made efforts to keep tickets within reach for local fans, like creating special low-cost tickets (“Category 4”) reserved only for residents of the host country. At the 2010 tournament in South Africa, about 15 percent of tickets were in this category, starting around $20. In 2014 in Brazil, 400,000 such tickets were set aside, starting at $30, with extra discounts (another 50 percent!) for students, seniors, and people on social support. In Qatar, FIFA moved away from tiered ticket pricing but still used some resident-based pricing and phased sales to guide ticket sales.” When pressed on sky-high ticket prices, FIFA’s Infantino, speaking at the glitzy Milken Institute’s global confab in Beverly Hills, stated, “We have to look at the market—we are in the market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world. So we have to apply market rates.” He then added a layer of mendacious gibberish, asserting, “You cannot go to watch in the US a college game, not even speaking about a top professional game of a certain level, for less than $300. And this is the World Cup.” Driven Out The ticket pricing issue is only an emblematic example of what FIFA brings to their host cities. Staging the World Cup tends to stoke debt, displacement, and the militarization of public space. The main differences—whether we were talking about Durban, Rio, or Doha—were the languages used to dissemble and explain the ensuing corruption scandals. And yet, despite all of this, there was also a fourth component: joy. That’s why people put up with the inconveniences, the graft, and the oppression: a love of the spectacle and the beautiful game within it. Sure enough, the people of these countries were generous and enthusiastic hosts. Bars turned into fiestas. Fiestas turned into bacchanalias. And bacchanalias became hyper-focused watch parties, as everyone snapped from revelry to riveted attention when it was game time. Another difference between this World Cup and those of years past is the absence, now less than a month away, of that sense of incipient joy. There is no festive thrum that usually accompanies the preamble to revelry. Many of the host cities lack public signage that would even let people know about the tournament, let alone get them excited about it. In the US, we are certainly getting the financial chaos with host cities holding the fiscal bag, the fears of displacement (which the unhoused people of past host cities can attest to), and the hyper-militarized policing. Even hoteliers are in a dour mood, despite FIFA’s mantra that the 2026 World Cup would instigate $30 billion in economic activity. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), the biggest hotel-industry organization in the US, 80 percent of their member respondents in World Cup host cities reported their bookings are below initial rosy forecasts. Cities hardest hit include Kansas City, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and New York City. The AHLA’s report also found that “65–70 percent of respondents across markets say visa barriers and broader geopolitical concerns are significantly suppressing international demand. These factors consistently rank as the top constraint on World Cup-driven travel.” International joy is being thwarted by dour right-wing nationalism. But, not to be left out, FIFA also played a key role in the economic debacle in the making, canceling scores of their own reservations. The AHLA stated that “FIFA room block overcommitment created an artificial early demand signal that has since recalibrated, with roughly half of respondents in host markets reporting material room block releases.” The geopolitics of how the world is right now regarding the United States also cannot be dismissed. To many, the United States is a rogue state bent on arming Israel’s war against the people of Palestine and Lebanon as well as their imperial war of choice on the people of Iran. Trump’s clumsy social-media posting thumbs are only making things worse, such as when he threatened the Iranian squad that earned their place on the biggest stage. He wrote, “The Iran National Soccer Team is welcome to The World Cup, but I really don’t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.” As if we needed additional evidence that the “FIFA Peace Prize” that Infantino bestowed on our decrepit president has moved from a pathetic suck-up to a horrific irony. The events look like an apt symbol for how joyless the United States has become under the authoritarian eye of the current regime and how pitiable this World Cup is shaping up to be. If Iran’s team were forced to withdraw from the tournament, it would become the first in 75 years to do so, willingly or otherwise. If the Trump White House was thinking strategically, they’d want Iran to participate. After all, in recent international matches abroad, players from the team chose not to sing the country’s national anthem, signaling dissent against the Iranian government. Two players on the women’s team recently claimed political asylum in Australia while there for the Asian Cup. Such gestures at the 2026 World Cup would be a propaganda bonanza for Trump and Netanyahu. Instead, Trump publicly scoffed at the thought of Iranmissing the World Cup. “I really don’t care,” Trump told Politico, “I think Iran is a badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes.” At a World Cup tune-up match in March, players on the Iranian men’s teams donned backpacks to memorialize the US-Israeli attacks that included the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school where more than 175 people were killed, including school children and teachers, according to Iran’s government. It’s not just the war on Iran that is casting a pall over this year’s World Cup. Usually, host cities hold World Cup “fan fests.” These are ways for people who cannot afford tickets to watch the games on big outdoor screens, hang out with thousands of other soccer lovers, and experience the general vibe. This year, all the US fan fests, which were to be held in six cities, have been slimmed down or outright canceled. Cities aren’t getting the federal funds needed to put them on, which Republicans are blaming on holdups of Homeland Security money. Most notoriously, the New York/New Jersey “fan fests” broke with tradition and sold tickets to what was supposed to be and has always been a free event—only to eventually cancel it outright. Thinking back to the “fan fests” in Rio, which were just as fun—sometimes more fun—than the matches themselves, the ticketed-then-canceled New York/New Jersey event looks like an apt symbol for how joyless the United States has become under the authoritarian eye of the current regime and how pitiable this World Cup is shaping up to be. Only these people could squeeze every bit of fun out of the World Cup. Still, it’s fitting for a country being ruled by chaos and fear. Not even soccer is immune from Trump’s reverse Midas touch. FIFA is just reaping what it has sown. https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/54864/behold-the-joyless-world-cup? Back Jules Boykoff is the author of Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine (OR Books, 2026) and Kicking (Duke University Press, 2026), a memoir about his former life as a professional footballer and his current life as a critical academic of sport. Boykoff teaches political science at Pacific University. Dave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation. He has authored numerous books on the politics of sport, including most recently The Kaepernick Effect. He also hosts The Nation’s Edge of Sports podcast and cohosts The Collison on WPFW. |
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