World Cup 2026: When Sport Exposes the Fault Lines of Politics

The successful joint bid by the United States, Canada and Mexico to host the FIFA World Cup 2026 was widely welcomed in international diplomatic circles, regarded as an exceptional achievement in cross-border sports diplomacy. Through the "WE ARE 26" slogan, FIFA and the host countries sought to present an image of regional cooperation and shared cohesion, promoting the idea that the soft power of sport could prevail over complex geopolitical differences.

Yet by the summer of 2026, these promises had collided with a completely different political reality. Rather than reflecting unity, seamless movement, and open borders, preparations for this major event revealed deep divisions and strict security measures across North America. As a result, the World Cup shifted from being an instrument of regional integration to a magnifying lens exposing the sharp political contradictions that shape the domestic and foreign policies of the host countries.

Hosting the FIFA World Cup 2026 requires the seamless movement of millions of supporters, athletes, and officials across three countries, necessitating flexible, open border management akin to Europe’s free-travel zone. Yet this requirement collides with a completely different reality, as North America relies on strict border policies and stringent security measures, particularly along the US–Mexico border. This stark contradiction between the tournament’s commercial and tourism objectives, on the one hand, and the security reality of closed borders, on the other, creates enormous challenges for security agencies and domestic stability.

The United States views its southern border with considerable security concern, driven by pressure from political groups that regard any flexibility in opening the border as a threat to state sovereignty. This approach has placed the Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in a genuine dilemma, as these agencies are required to facilitate and expedite the entry of tournament visitors while also facing domestic demands for tighter border controls. This tension has become evident in the exchange of criticism within political circles, leaving federal agencies caught between their international obligations in hosting the event and demands for a stricter security approach.

The picture becomes more complex due to the geographical distribution of the host cities and the difficulties of crossing borders. Some of the most prominent host cities are in border states that already witness sharp divisions over immigration issues, including Texas (Houston and Arlington) and California (Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area).
The continuous movement of supporters across borders, from Mexico City or Monterrey to matches in Texas or California, will place unprecedented pressure on customs and border protection operations, creating a logistical crisis that requires highly complex crossing procedures. The table below shows the matches that require complex border-crossing procedures:

Accordingly, various political actors recognised the scale of these administrative challenges. They began exploiting the influx of foreign visitors to highlight weaknesses in immigration and border policies, warning of security threats and the dangers of unregulated migration flows to achieve electoral gains.

Amid this political tension, major airlines and the US Travel Association warned against transferring customs officers from airports to cover land-border shortages, stressing that such a move would cause serious harm to international travel and the economy as a whole.

The impact of the tournament has not been confined to the political and security dimensions; it has also provided activists and opposition groups a golden opportunity to challenge state policies publicly. Tournament venues have become arenas for protest and the contestation of disagreements over immigration laws, as seen at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, a city with a high concentration of immigrants, where activists called for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be prevented from operating within stadiums during the tournament. Some regarded this as a direct challenge to the state’s authority and its ability to maintain domestic security.

Thus, the border issue is no longer merely a geographical crisis at border crossings; it has extended its impact to exert a profound influence on the domestic politics of the host countries. The challenge of processing millions of visitors quickly is at odds with governments’ desire to demonstrate their power and control, deepening partisan divides over immigration.

Securing World Cup stadiums has become one of the most politically controversial and divisive issues in the United States. While this major sporting event is expected to attract around 10 million visitors to North America, the prospect of deploying federal immigration authorities within and around host stadiums has created a state of sharp domestic polarisation.

Officially, the US administration has maintained its categorical refusal to rule out the arrest of migrants in the vicinity of match venues, citing the need to preserve national security. The government considers that its federal agencies should retain their full powers to address cross-border threats that typically accompany major global events, such as human trafficking and the smuggling of goods.

In contrast, this security-oriented approach was met with strong opposition from public opinion and civil society organisations, which regarded these measures as merely a political tactic of targeted intimidation rather than a genuine security necessity.

A public opinion poll conducted by The Washington Post in collaboration with the University of Maryland in the weeks before the tournament revealed deep partisan and racial divides. Some 65% of the general public opposed the presence of immigration authorities at stadiums, while only 35% supported it. This divide was particularly evident in political affiliations, with 92% of Democrats opposing these measures and 72% of Republicans supporting them.

Demographically, opposition reached approximately 80% among African Americans and Hispanic Americans, compared with 58% among White Americans. Meanwhile, 68% of those who identified themselves as football supporters opposed this presence. These figures confirm that the deployment of federal agents is viewed by marginalised groups more as an internal threat than as a measure intended to protect the tournament’s guests.

This opposition did not stop at the level of theoretical rejection; rather, it developed into organised grassroots and trade-union activism that directly threatens the tournament’s logistical operations. Immigrant rights groups and labour unions across the eleven US host cities formed an advanced resistance front to document and disrupt any potential immigration enforcement operations.

In Los Angeles, a labour union representing more than 2,000 hospitality workers at SoFi Stadium threatened to organise a general strike if immigration authorities approached the stadium, which has a capacity of 70,000 spectators. In Dallas, civil rights movements developed contingency plans that included distributing hundreds of alert tools and legal resources to targeted groups to warn them of potential security raids on match days.

In addition, local commercial activities were used as tools of civil and political resistance. In Philadelphia, awareness campaigns were launched to encourage restaurants and entertainment venues to declare themselves “safe spaces” for migrants, supported by a network of immigration lawyers ready to intervene immediately if federal authorities targeted these establishments.

In a similar step in Seattle, rights groups provided intensive training for service-sector workers on the rights guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, enabling them to deal lawfully with federal security personnel in the event of an encounter.

As a culmination of these efforts, and in a move that caused significant damage to the United States’ soft-power image, a coalition of more than 120 civil society organisations issued an official travel warning to millions of international supporters. The coalition warned visitors of the possibility of being subjected to serious human rights violations, including arbitrary denial of entry, detention, and deportation.

Against this complex backdrop, the World Cup has shifted from being merely a sporting celebration that promotes global unity to becoming a decentralised focal point of civil disobedience. It thus shows that major events fail to conceal deep domestic crises when security is used to deepen societal polarisation.

Geographical borders and administrative procedures, such as visa issuance, are powerful tools for asserting state sovereignty and controlling the movement of individuals. During the FIFA World Cup 2026, the United States used entry requirements and visas as a means of political exclusion, prioritising national security considerations and its foreign policy objectives over FIFA regulations that stipulate neutrality and the right of all to participate. Through this approach, the global sporting event was transformed into an arena for imposing conditions and excluding others.

This trend became evident at the beginning of 2026, when the US government expanded the scope of its stringent restrictions, including suspending visa issuance to varying degrees, to cover 39 countries instead of 19, some of which were participating in the World Cup, reflecting a more hard-line approach to immigration policy.

Although the US Department of State approved an exemption allowing national teams and technical staff to enter the country to avoid a crisis with FIFA, this exemption did not extend to supporters. As a result, fans from countries subject to these restrictions were categorically prevented from attending the tournament, effectively limiting spectator attendance to citizens of Western countries and their allies. The table below outlines the US visa restrictions applied during the FIFA World Cup 2026 to illustrate the scale of this exclusion:

In addition to political restrictions, the United States used financial obstacles as an additional tool of exclusion by expanding its visa bond programme. The authorities required visitors from low-income and developing countries to pay a bond of up to US$15,000 to guarantee their departure after the end of their stay. Observers consider this prohibitive requirement a means of strengthening US economic control under the guise of preserving domestic security, preventing supporters from those countries from attending the tournament.

The repercussions of these restrictions were not confined to supporters; they also had complex implications for the participation of some national teams, as was the case with Iran. Amid the ongoing military conflicts in 2026 between the United States and Israel on the one hand and Iran on the other, the US administration found itself in a contradictory position. It complied with FIFA regulations and allowed the Iranian national team to play its matches in Los Angeles, while also facing security concerns and sharp domestic criticism. This situation led to confusion in official statements between welcoming and warning, damaging the image of the United States as a host country capable of accommodating everyone.

Even allied and neutral countries were not spared these stringent administrative complications, as became evident in the crisis faced by the South African national team before its match in Georgia. The team’s travel to its training camp in Mexico was delayed for 24 hours. More importantly, US authorities suddenly refused to grant assistant coach Helman Mkhalele an entry visa, without providing any explanation, forcing him to remain in his country.

This situation angered South Africa’s Minister of Sport, who considered it an insult to his country’s reputation. It demonstrated that these measures not only harm the fairness of sporting competition but also cause diplomatic tensions.

In an attempt to ease external pressure and criticism, the US Department of State introduced a system known as “FIFA PASS” to expedite interview appointments for ticket holders, together with a temporary exemption from the financial bond requirement. However, this measure was largely symbolic and did not change the fundamental conditions for obtaining a visa. Applicants were not exempted from paying the required fees, nor were the previous bans revoked.

Host countries of major sporting events often seek to exploit such occasions to improve their international image and reputation, relying on positive media coverage and the immense popularity of sport to respond to external criticism. The FIFA World Cup 2026 represents an unprecedented example of this strategy, as the three host countries, alongside FIFA, seek to polish their image before the world through what is known as “sportswashing”.

At the same time, these efforts clash with active domestic mobilisation aimed at using the global attention surrounding the tournament to highlight government abuses. This has been particularly evident in warnings issued by prominent human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Sport & Rights Alliance, regarding attempts by the US administration to use the atmosphere of the tournament to present an ideal image of unity and security in an effort to conceal its restrictive policies towards migrants, large-scale deportation campaigns, and hard-line foreign policy decisions.

These concerns became particularly evident in December 2025, when FIFA President Gianni Infantino presented the “FIFA Peace Prize” to US President Donald Trump during the tournament draw ceremony in Washington. Infantino justified this step by praising Trump’s role in mediating ceasefires in international conflicts, thereby linking FIFA’s name to the objectives of the US administration and effectively ending any claims of sporting neutrality.

This rapprochement sparked a sharp crisis within football institutions, reflected in the formal complaint submitted by Norwegian Football Federation President Lise Klaveness, with the support of human rights organisations. She accused Infantino of violating the rules of neutrality and introducing an award that lacked transparency, revealing the deep divisions within global football governance over the politicisation of sport.

The contradiction becomes particularly evident when this reality is compared with the commitments accompanying the 2018 tournament-hosting bid, which included strict commitments to protect human rights and labour rights and to combat discrimination. As the start of the competition approached, these commitments declined noticeably. Human rights reports indicated that only four US cities had published their human rights plans.

Amid this ambiguity and the absence of clear rules, supporters’ associations expressed concern about how authorities handle peaceful protests or minor infractions, turning the tournament from a platform for protecting rights into a potential avenue for concealing security abuses.

Although Canada has sought to use the tournament as a platform to highlight its social cohesion and economic vitality, the preparations have revealed a harsh reality marked by the marginalisation of vulnerable groups and the clearing of streets to improve the public image. In Canada, for example, the city of Toronto has witnessed an increase in violence against homeless people. Human rights reports documented their exposure to systematic physical targeting and forced displacement by security guards, to keep them out of the sight of tourists and media cameras to project an artificial ideal image.

The same pattern was repeated in Vancouver, where anti-homelessness organisations criticised municipal plans and described them as performative, pointing to the accelerating removal of homeless encampments and personal belongings by force. This reflects governments’ preference for the aesthetic comfort of tourists at the expense of the rights and civil liberties of marginalised groups, which damages Canada’s human rights image internationally.

On the other hand, the organisation of the tournament in Mexico coincides with profound shifts in its foreign policy following President Claudia Sheinbaum’s assumption of office. She has sought to use this global event to achieve economic gains and affirm her country’s independence in the face of US pressure.

Tensions between the two countries escalated in early 2026 as a result of disagreements over combating drug trafficking, unauthorised US intelligence operations, and threats of military intervention. This situation led the Mexican president to criticise US interference strongly and to seek constitutional amendments allowing the annulment of election results if any foreign intervention were proven. The opposition considered this an attempt by the ruling party to monopolise power under the pretext of protecting national sovereignty.

Despite the Mexican government’s efforts to use the World Cup as evidence of stability and to respond to US claims portraying it as a failed state, it faces a complex domestic reality that threatens this image. In the state of Jalisco, whose capital, Guadalajara, hosts four matches, highly violent armed gangs exercise control, leading to an unprecedented rise in disappearances and the spread of impunity.

In response, activist groups and the families of missing persons plan to use the tournament’s media coverage to organise large-scale protests, criticising the wide disparity between generous government spending on organising sport and the neglect of funding for efforts to search for their relatives. In this way, they seek to make the tournament a global platform that exposes the stark contradiction between the image the state promotes and the reality of its internal crises.

In conclusion, the efforts of the host countries to use the world’s most prominent sporting event for “sportswashing” and improving their international image are confronted by growing public and human rights mobilisation. Stadiums and host cities have become arenas for rejecting government abuses, ranging from protests against the extensive presence of immigration authorities at US stadiums to denunciations of arbitrary visa restrictions and the exposure of policies marginalising homeless people in Canada and covering up internal violence in Mexico.

In the end, the FIFA World Cup 2026 proves that major sporting events cannot be separated from political reality, and that using sport as a mask to conceal domestic crises and societal polarisation often ends in failure.

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