Column by B4Ball
The FIFA 2026 Men’s World Cup Finals taking place this summer in Canada, Mexico and the United States from June 11 to July 19, 2026, is generating a lot of interest, as is usual with the most popular global sporting fiesta. As a prelude to the competition, the African Cup of Nations (AFCON taking place in Morocco has further heightened interest in the World Cup, with some of Africa’s representatives using the tournament as a testing ground for the teams they intend to present at the Mundial.
The three countries hosting the competition this summer are geographically contiguous and until last year, had an integrated economy of sorts. These are normally positive indicators for a successful hosting of the tournament as fans can easily move from one venue to the other, engage with the participating teams and interact much more easily with other fans. Those must have been factors topmost in the minds of FIFA when the competition was awarded to the trio of host States.
However, the advent of the Trump administration and the implementation of policies on which President was elected appear to be causing some disquiet in the minds of fans who had planned to attend the matches, particularly those to be hosted by the United States. The first “worry” more a concern for FIFA than fans, was the public comment by President Trump that he reserved the right to shift match venues in the US, from already determined host cities to others, should the security situation in the former deteriorate.
That statement, made in September 25, 2025, caused some concern within FIFA and the sporting world given its implication for logistics, broadcast rights, partner hotels, etc. already predetermined by the FIFA and the local organizing committee (LOC). Thus, Victor Montagliani, President of FIFA affiliate, CONCACAF, publicly sought to undertake damage control by asserting that only FIFA decides whether to move matches from host cities.
The comment of President Trump had been in response to a question from one of the White House reporters with specific reference to Seattle and San Francisco, where six matches are planned to be hosted at the Seattle Lumen Field and another six at the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
With the tension generated by that comment having been seemingly well-managed as it were, the cancellation of 100,000 visas already issued to many people who had planned to visit the US as announced recently and the enforcement of immigration laws by the Trump administration, especially as exemplified by the modus of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents, has somewhat re-opened concerns about the ability of fans to visit the US for the matches, the integrity of their movements while within the jurisdiction of the US and indeed their safety as well.
These issues were the aftermath of continuous ICE operations, which have led to allegations by some persons that these agents act on the ethnicity and racial features of those whom they approach. The fact that they also operate quite farther away from border areas and in cities and towns seemingly further ignite concerns being expressed by potential visitors to the World Cup about possible harassment and safety.
The killing, on Wednesday January 7, 2026, of US citizen, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three and an award-winning poet, by an ICE agent, further exacerbated concerns about the modus of ICE operatives. Some potential visitors are bound to wonder what could befall foreigners attending the World Cup if a US citizen could be treated the way Wood was.
On calls for visitors to boycott the World Cup in the US, there have been social media campaigns in this direction. However, some of those campaigns claiming thousands of ticket and hotel cancellations have turned out to be fake after being fact-checked. That being said, there is allegedly a small but growing clamor for such boycott, with a reputable mainstream media in the Middle East publishing verifiable claims in this regard in the second week of January 2026.
FIFA officials need to take urgent steps to address any concerns by potential visitors to the US by directly engaging with the authorities in that country to once again provide assurances and to follow these through with demonstrable action on the ground. While the US government has the right to deploy its ICE agents as it pleases, the potential impact of the modus operandi of the organization, that resulted in the killing of Ms. Wood and massive demonstrations against that act and the agents involved across the US, does not inspire confidence in potential visitors to want to undertake the trip. Additionally, it might actually strengthen the hands of those social media campaigns calling for a boycott of the global soccer fiesta in the US.
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