There has been so much controversy in the run-up to the 2026 World Cup that it is sometimes easy to forget that it is actually a football tournament. That is why it is something of a relief that the competition is finally underway, allowing fans to focus on the game itself rather than all the off-field goings on. The 2026 competition is being played in North America with thousands of fans descending on the United States, Canada and Mexico to watch their national teams in action. It features 16 host cities, 48 teams, and 104 matches. It amounts to a stupendous orgy of footballing excess.
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Even so, the build-up to this tournament has been markedly ugly and increasingly politically-charged, despite Fifa’s attempts to paint it as a unifying global event. Fifa has faced a torrent of criticism over the sky-high ticket prices for matches. There was uproar in some quarters over Omar Artan, one of Africa’s top referees, a Somali man, being denied entry to the US. Geopolitical tensions have also featured heavily in this World Cup, with Iran required to enter and leave the US on match-days. There was even confusion over whether fans could bring refillable water bottles into stadiums for matches, many of which will take place in stifling heat. Fifa initially told fans bottles would be permitted, then last week said they would be prohibited, before saying again they would be allowed. A series of U-turns in quick succession that would make even Keir Starmer blush. Ian Wright, the former Arsenal striker who is on punditry duty with ITV, described it as ‘a World Cup of chaos’. Don’t hold back, Wrighty! It is all water off a duck’s back for Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, who told the growing army of critics to ‘chill’ and ‘relax’. Nothing, it seems, fazes Infantino. He has already said this will be the greatest World Cup ever – rather conveniently glossing over the contempt for human rights shown by Fifa in allowing Qatar to host the competition in 2022 and the disgrace of awarding the World Cup to Putin’s Russia in 2018. That is Infantino and Fifa in a nutshell: morality and ethics count for little.
