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International sporting events, spectacles of recreation designed to distract people from their day-to-day lives, are cultural and political branding opportunities for their hosts. For authoritarians, they have long been used as a tool to distract from or launder stains of human rights violations and corruption – a practice called “sportswashing”. Russia, which has a track record of violent repression and Qatar, notorious for labor rights violations, each paid millions in bribes to be able to host the World Cup in 2018 and 2022 respectively. “This is a new image of Russia that we now have,” Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, said after the tournament there.
This summer, the Fifa Club World Cup has come to the United States – the event includes 32 of the most prominent soccer clubs in the world, and is a much-anticipated precursor to next year’s World Cup, hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada. The Trump administration, however, is not using the opportunity to manufacture a positive image of the country, but instead is using the events as a platform to amplify its emerging authoritarianism.
In a now deleted post on X, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that it would be “suited and booted” to attend the group stage matches in Miami. Even as CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) later clarified that they would be there as part of the event’s security team, a role they have played at similar events, Ice told NBC news that non-citizens attending should carry their immigration papers. The declaration followed JD Vance joking that people are welcome to come to the 2026 World Cup, but “when time is up they’ll have to go home” or “talk to Kristi Noem”, the secretary of homeland security. The choice to stoke fear of raids at an international soccer event, a sport that is hugely popular among immigrants in the US, is part and parcel of this administration’s desire to brand itself as so powerful that it is accountable to no one.
This intimidating language comes as the country is witnessing an escalation in raids, detentions and deportations conducted under Noem. It comes as people are being sent to prison camps such as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot) in El Salvador, or to South Sudan, which is going through a severe humanitarian crisis. It comes as racial profiling is rampant, meaning that every person who looks like an immigrant to an Ice officer, every person of color regardless of citizenship, is subject to scrutiny.
This is consistent with the US’s other actions on the world stage, including its withdrawal from the United Nations human rights council, its sanctioning of the international criminal court for issuing arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, its participation in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and its posting of bizarre AI reels to visualize turning the strip into a beach resort. This administration is one that flaunts its white supremacy, ending its refugee and asylum program for everyone except for white Afrikaaners. It seems to relish the opportunity for belligerent violations of human rights whether that’s arresting a mayor at an immigration detention center, forcibly removing and handcuffing a senator at a homeland security press conference, or refusing to release Mahmoud Khalil, despite a judge’s order.
Last month, the leading human rights organization Human Rights Watch urged Fifa to reconsider allowing the United States to host the World Cup citing “grave concerns” over the treatment of immigrants. Soon thereafter, a travel ban was ordered, denying entry to citizens of 12 largely Black and Muslim countries in the world, and restricting others – with an exception made for World Cup players.
Fifa, notorious for turning a blind eye to authoritarians, made no attempt to hold this administration accountable. Trump’s anti-immigrant policies were known to Infantino when he hailed their “great friendship”, even adopting Trump’s pet phrase to “make the world great again” because “football – or soccer – unites the world.” When asked about the fears around Ice presence at the Club World Cup matches, Infantino said he had “no concerns about anything” except security.
But ticket sales are slow, and there have been banks of empty seats at most matches so far. Just days before the kick-off of the opening match featuring Inter Miami’s own Lionel Messi, one of the biggest superstars in the world, students at local colleges were being offered tickets for as little as $20, buy one get four free. Perhaps some of this can be owed to the format of the event, which is new, or maybe even to soccer’s still growing popularity in the US. Intimidation, however, does not help ticket sales. Tourism nationwide is down 9%, at a projected cost of over $8.6bn.
Authoritarianism is only as powerful as our acquiescence. People within the country are beginning to mobilize. The Club World Cup began on the same weekend that millions of people took to the streets to participate in a “No Kings” rally. It follows powerful grassroots protests in Los Angeles to fight Ice’s kidnappings there.
To hold these bullies accountable, we need the world to stand with us. No country should send their team to play when the citizens of 12 among them are banned. No person is safe when agents roam the country and its stadiums masked, asking people to show their papers based on the color of their skin. If what we’re witnessing is a precursor to the World Cup, then it has never been clearer that a boycott is necessary.
