Global Game: 2026 FIFA World Cup beats the clown show

Ian Buruma

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup, cohosted by Canada, the US, and Mexico, in its knockout rounds, it’s now win or go home. But as more teams are eliminated and the field narrows, the tournament looks increasingly like a success, despite many dire predictions.

There were good reasons to be pessimistic at the tournament’s start. The prices for tickets — which swelled to more than $1,000 on average for group-stage matches — are beyond the reach of most soccer fans.

The Trump administration has treated some competing countries with utter contempt. The Iran team was forced to go back to Mexico after every game. Omar Artan, a top referee from Somalia, was refused entry to the US. Many fans were denied visas.

Moreover, FIFA President Gianni Infantino is a megalomaniac who has put his face on global soccer in much the same way Trump has done in US politics and on the Washington skyline. The two men are kindred spirits with a weakness for hyperbole. Infantino declared this year’s World Cup to be “the greatest event in human history.” Not the French Revolution, Waterloo, or D-Day — no, a soccer competition. He also lobbied hard for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and, when that didn’t happen, presented the US president with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.

Infantino, like Trump, also has a weakness for dictators and autocrats: Just look at the infamous photograph of Infantino grinning like a schoolboy with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the 2018 World Cup in Moscow. But Trump appears to be his biggest catch. On one of his visits to the White House, Infantino said he felt “happy to be here, at home, if I can say that,” to which Trump replied: “You are home.”

The worry that this year’s World Cup would be a Trump-Infantino clown show, with the US president hogging the limelight, or a festival of the oligarchs, with corrupt strongmen and their cronies enjoying soccer as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents rounded up the riffraff, was not ill-founded. But so far, this has not happened.

Yes, Infantino still flies around North America in a private jet to be in full view of the television cameras at almost every game. But Trump has not been seen at all (although he is scheduled to attend the final on July 19 in New Jersey and present the trophy to the winning team). And small US cities have been turned into venues for nonstop soccer parties, with fans from all over the world mixing with locals.

The tournament has also become a stage for global identity. Players and fans from Algeria, Egypt, and Jordan have brandished symbols of Palestinian nationhood. Europe’s best teams — France, Spain, England, and the Netherlands — rely heavily on immigrants or their children.

Japan’s goalkeeper, Zion Suzuki, has a Ghanaian father and was born in the US. The superb Morocco team consists mostly of players born abroad. Top-level soccer remains a shining example of the positive influence of immigration.

This “diaspora World Cup,” as journalist Barney Ronay calls it, is on full display in middle America. Locals who usually ignore soccer have embraced the event with gusto. Residents in Chattanooga, Tennessee, welcomed the Spanish team with sangria and tapas, while locals in Lawrence, Kansas, greeted the Algerian team with cries of “Viva l’Algérie!”

It is easy to overstate the consequences of these international jamborees, but the impact on the US is significant. Most Americans have little experience with truly global sports. Seeing the intense, festive patriotism of Norwegians, Moroccans, and Japanese fans up close should dent provincial American attitudes.

Then there is the sight of American minorities — Mexicans, Haitians, Ecuadorians, and Senegalese — partying in huge numbers. Even if Trump wanted to hog the limelight, this is not his scene. It is the very opposite.

FIFA may be a corrupt, moneymaking machine happy to sportswash authoritarian regimes. But that hasn’t stopped this World Cup fiesta from going against everything Trump’s MAGA movement stands for. The tournament does not belong to Trump or Infantino but to the global masses who have claimed it as their own.

Ian Buruma is the author of several books, including 'Year Zero: A History of 1945' and 'Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah'