A World Cup boycott would be a big statement but unlikely to accomplish much

International sporting events don’t often see teams refuse to participate for a cause – but when it’s happened, it hasn’t been effective

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t was probably fitting that the first call from someone with genuine power should emanate from Germany, long one of soccer’s moral centers. “The time has definitely come,” German soccer federation vice-president Oke Göttlich told the Hamburger Morgenpost, “to seriously consider and discuss” a boycott of the 2026 World Cup.

“What were the justifications for the boycotts of the Olympic Games in the 1980s?” added Göttlich, who is also the president of FC St. Pauli, Hamburg’s earnestly countercultural club. “By my reckoning, the potential threat is greater now than it was then. We need to have this discussion.”

Meanwhile, Fifa’s disgraced former president Sepp Blatter, long the sport’s amoral center, now almost 90 years old and never one to pass up the opportunity to take a swing at his successor, further undermined this World Cup. On Monday, he endorsed comments by a former Fifa anti-corruption lawyer – breaks fourth wall to glance directly into the camera with a smirk – to “avoid the United States!”