Donald Trump’s World Cup plot It’s warfare without the shooting

This week, Fifa marked the 100-day countdown to the World Cup. It is also the week in which the principal host nation, the United States, killed the supreme leader of one of the countries due to take part.

If that seems like a strange curtain-raiser to the world’s most popular sporting event, it reflects a wider problem: wars overseas and immigration enforcement at home are threatening to overshadow the tournament. Already, fears are growing that ICE will try to flex its muscle during the tournament, with 78 out of 104 games taking place in the US. Add to that the problem of cartel violence in Mexico, another host nation, and this World Cup starts to look less like a football tournament than a theater of geopolitical unrest.

This is the liberal nightmare, or conservative fantasy, of what Trump’s “MAGA” World Cup might look like. Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the United States’s founding, the World Cup is — in Trump’s view — a free publicity hit. He wants as many eyeballs as possible, using the tournament as a vehicle to promote America — and himself. What could be more Trumpian than that?

Trump has long coveted the World Cup. During his first term, he claimed it took just “one call” for him to take personal charge of the US bid. “When I heard ‘World Cup,’” he said in 2018, “I wanted to do it.” Evidently, he was sold on Fifa’s (slightly dubious) claims that the tournament would create around 185,000 jobs and generate more than $5 billion in economic activity. Then there are the eyeballs. Whereas this year’s Super Bowl drew about 125 million viewers, the 2022 World Cup final had around 1.6 billion. That realization dawned on Trump when Fifa President Gianni Infantino told him last year that the number of tickets on sale were “like three Super Bowls every day for one month”. “I love what he said — three Super Bowls a day for a month,” Trump responded. “That’s what it is. It’s amazing when you think about it, I’d never heard that expression. That’s a lot.”

Unlike other Trump-aligned sports, such as MMA, NFL, and boxing, football isn’t classically MAGA. It’s inherently globalist, with over 211 national associations united under the rule-making aegis of a transnational governing body based in Switzerland. A record 48 of those national associations will compete in this World Cup. Team USA is unlikely to win, but an America First president can still take a certain satisfaction from giving this distinctly un-American sport a patriotic makeover. The makeover will include mooted “freedom” trailer-trucks in America’s host cities, all gleaming chrome and fluttering flags, as well as a Great American State Fair on the National Mall that will “celebrate America’s exceptional history and culture”. 

“There’s going to be a ton of patriotism at this tournament,” Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House Fifa task force and son of Rudy, tells me. “Some people want to politicize patriotism, but it should be apolitical.” Giuliani does not expand on who these people are, but it is difficult to imagine Trump, who has a long-standing habit of blending politics with otherwise apolitical traditions, choosing the World Cup as the one venue in which he nobly eschews partisan politics. More likely is that the president does the opposite. At one end of the spectrum, he might wear a red MAGA cap at the opening ceremony. At the other, he might do something as radical as relocating games from cities he deems to be unsafe — an action he has already threatened to take.

Those in Trump’s orbit are divided on the question of politicizing sporting events: Giuliani is one of several officials who want to frame the World Cup around American pride, while others see the tournament as a stage on which to advance the MAGA agenda in full view of the public. This second camp is exemplified by the likes of Corey Lewandowski, an aide to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and JD Vance. They see big sporting events like these as an opportunity to enforce, rather than shy away from, the MAGA agenda, particularly in relation to immigration enforcement. On the eve of the Super Bowl, for example, Lewandowski warned: “There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else. We will find you. We will apprehend you. We will put you in a detention facility, and we will deport you.” Meanwhile, JD Vance struck a similar note about the World Cup. “Everybody is welcome to come and see this incredible event,” he said. “But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home.” It is a stark contrast from one of the catchphrases of the London 2012 opening ceremony: “This is for everyone”.

Still, in the aftermath of the Minnesota crisis — where a federal immigration enforcement surge sparked protests and multiple fatal encounters involving ICE agents — the White House understands that any overt shows of force, such as dramatic deportations or arrests during a global tournament, would distract from Trump’s starring role as master of ceremonies. Besides, out of any MAGA figure, it is the president himself who has historically been the most willing to relax border control in favor of visiting athletes. As part of the US bid for hosting the tournament in 2018, the president signed a letter that promised “all eligible athletes, officials, and fans from all countries around the world would be able to enter the United States without discrimination”. That even applied to several Muslim-majority countries whose citizens were banned from entering at the time. And last year, when the White House announced a ban on travelers from 19 countries, the president added a specific carveout for international athletes, coaches and support staff attending the World Cup, Olympics — which Los Angeles will host in 2028 — and other high-profile sporting competitions. 

But not all tourists are treated equally. The president’s travel ban carveout does not apply to fans, meaning that Iran, Haiti, Senegal and Ivory Coast face playing without support. The White House might provide an additional carveout for Senegal and Ivory Coast, but the outlook is less rosy for Iran and Haiti 

Even Iran’s footballers might not make it to the tournament. As the war continues, Fifa declared that it will “monitor developments” while Giuliani, more belligerently, posted on X: “The largest state sponsor of terrorism in my lifetime is dead… We’ll deal with soccer games tomorrow — tonight, we celebrate their opportunity for freedom.” Trump, in his own inimitable style, simply said that he doesn’t “really care” if Iran plays or not.

With China, Russia and potentially Iran absent, there will be an almost Roman quality to this year’s World Cup. The emperor’s enemies have been vanquished or sidelined, leaving Trump to bask in the glory. And when the masses tune in for the final, it will be Trump standing on the dais, crowning the victors. 

The question is whether he will stop there. If last year’s Club World Cup in New York is anything to go by, it would seem unlikely. When Chelsea players collected winners’ medals from Trump — after he pocketed one himself — captain Reece James stood ready to lift the trophy. Only then did he notice that the president was still standing next to him, explaining that he wanted to celebrate with the team. So there Trump stood, huddled among a sea of blue kits in his crimson tie, clapping along as if he himself had guided the team to victory. “I didn’t know he was going to be on the stand when we lifted the trophy, so I was a bit confused,” said one player. 

But Trump stands to gain more from the tournament than a gold medal. Since 2018, when, in his first term, the president led the US bid to host the 2026 event, he has developed a close relationship with Infantino, whom he affectionately calls “Johnny”. No world leader has visited the White House as many times as the Fifa president this year, and, at times, the line between personal and professional has appeared blurry. 

Their dynamic, however, is a curious one. When the pair is together, Infantino behaves more like an anxiously deferential maître d’ than one of the most powerful men in sport. At the Oval Office, the Swiss can often be seen nervously hovering behind Trump, smiling unctuously as he watches the president open his latest gifts, ranging from personalized football jerseys to made-up trophies. 

In another move designed to please Trump, Fifa set up a New York headquarters inside Trump Tower, meaning that the footballing body is effectively paying commercial rent to the Trump Organization. Infantino defended the decision by claiming that “Fifa [is] a global organization [and] to be global you have to be local, you have to be everywhere, so we have to be in New York.” 

It would seem that this logic applies to Florida too, where Infantino has made multiple trips to Mar-a-Lago. Earlier this year, for example, the Fifa President was at Trump’s Florida residence to promote plans for a digital currency, dubbed “FIFACoin”. It just so happened that the event was hosted by World Liberty International, a Trump-backed crypto platform, which has faced serious allegations of corruption. Were “FIFACoin” to take off, any kind of deal with Fifa would be highly lucrative — perhaps even for the Trump-linked crypto business. 

Clearly, Infantino understands better than most than the key to Trump’s heart is deference, not defiance. Which may explain why he has a habit of popping up at events that don’t bear any obvious connection to Fifa. Last year, for example, he accompanied Trump on his Middle Eastern tour, which resulted in the Fifa president arriving late to his own organization’s annual meeting. And just last week, he was spotted giggling in a red MAGA hat at a Board of Peace summit on Gaza’s reconstruction.

These appearances are not just photo-ops. Infantino’s Middle Eastern ties — particularly as they intersect with Trump — run deep. Indeed, they played a significant part in helping the US secure the 2026 World Cup bid. After all, it was Trump’s son-in-law and sometime Middle East emissary, Jared Kushner, who courted support from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, helping secure Saudi backing for the bid. Later, his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, attracted billions in capital from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, and Abu Dhabi investors. That confluence of interests means that World Cup‑related engagements could create valuable opportunities with Saudi and Qatari officials whose funds have become key backers of Kushner’s business ventures.

The tournament offers more direct financial benefits too. For Trump’s hotels in host cities such as New York and Miami, the World Cup promises to be a windfall. Room prices at the Trump International Beach resort in Miami jump from $361 per night on 10 June to an average of $662 when the tournament starts. That is, until the final week of the tournament, where average room prices rise to $703 per night. One day after the final, prices almost halve to $361 the following week. It is a similar story with Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York.

There is, of course, nothing nefarious about this: all hotel prices are expected to rise during the tournament. But if Trump follows through on his threat to move games from cities he deems unsafe, will he really target the cities in which he has hospitality venues? “It’s highly unlikely that he is going to move locations,” one Fifa employee claimed. “The level of preparation involved makes that unnecessary. There will, of course, be a security presence, but that is standard for any major sporting event.”

There is no question there will be a significant security presence at this year’s tournament. With an estimated 10 million visitors expected to travel to the United States, that much is inevitable. Yet security is only one part of the spectacle. This tournament will be a carnival. But it will be Donald Trump’s carnival, not Fifa’s.

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