Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House World Cup task force, said it plainly: "We want to make sure we are not going to allow a soccer tournament to be the opportunity for terrorists to potentially get in the country." That's the framing. A global festival of football, reduced to a security threat.
This is what the 2026 World Cup looks like off the pitch. Entry bans on multiple countries. Iran's fan ticket allocation revoked. Masked ICE agents potentially operating inside stadiums. And Omar Abdulkadir Artan — Africa's referee of the year for 2025 — turned away at Miami International Airport, his shot at becoming the first Somali official at a World Cup finished before it started. An unnamed Trump administration official suggested he had "association with suspected members of terror organisations." No further detail. No appeal. Just gone.
Iran's situation is a tournament within a tournament
That Iran is even at this World Cup is, frankly, remarkable. With US-Iran relations where they are, and active conflict still burning in the Middle East, their squad is based in Tijuana — crossing into the US only to play their group games in Los Angeles and Seattle, then leaving immediately. FIFA had the option to schedule Iran's matches in Mexico or Canada, even after hostilities escalated. Iran requested it. FIFA declined.
Trump told the Iranian team they'd better stay away "for its own life and safety." FIFA's response was essentially a shrug. Getting into America's sports market is Gianni Infantino's defining ambition, which means the world body will bend to almost any demand from Washington rather than risk the relationship. When Russia hosted in 2018, FIFA pressed them to ease immigration restrictions. That leverage doesn't exist here.
Infantino told fans complaining about the eye-watering ticket prices to "chill, relax." The same man who delivered that extraordinary pro-Qatar speech at the 2022 opening ceremony has now parked himself firmly in Trump's orbit. The pattern is consistent, at least.
Mexico and Canada are doing the heavy lifting
With 82 of the 104 matches staged in the United States, Mexico and Canada are hosting just 22 between them — and yet both countries are carrying most of the goodwill the tournament needs to function as a celebration rather than a spectacle of exclusion.
Mexico isn't without its own turbulence. Protesters clashed with police near the Azteca on opening day. Teachers are on strike. Economic inequality hasn't gone anywhere. But the reception the country gives the world's football fans is warm in a way that feels earned — this is Mexico's third time hosting a World Cup. It knows the assignment.
Canada, similarly, brings a spirit of inclusion that the tournament's nominal main host is actively working against.
On the pitch, all of this fades the moment Messi picks up the ball, or Mbappe turns a defender inside out, or some unknown 22-year-old announces himself to the world. That's the pull of the World Cup — it survives bad hosts, corrupt governing bodies, and political theatre. It always has.
But the image of Uzbekistan and Senegal players being searched on an airport tarmac with metal detectors and sniffer dogs doesn't disappear just because the football is brilliant. The biggest economy on earth, with the loudest voice in any room, chose to use this moment to make people feel unwelcome. That's not incidental to the 2026 World Cup. It's part of the story.
