FIFA and Infantino draw bipartisan skepticism ahead of the World Cup

Dozens of may­ors and oth­er city lead­ers gath­ered in the ball­room of a Wash­ing­ton ho­tel on a snowy Jan­u­ary morn­ing this year gripped by anger and anx­i­ety about the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment’s in­creas­ing­ly ag­gres­sive im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment op­er­a­tion that in­clud­ed the killings of two U.S. cit­i­zens in Min­neapo­lis.

And then FI­FA Pres­i­dent Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no took the stage.

“For the first time in 250 years of his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, well, you will not just be in­vad­ed but you will be con­quered,” he said as the au­di­ence at the Na­tion­al Con­fer­ence of May­ors large­ly re­act­ed with si­lence.

“You will be con­quered by soc­cer,” he added in an at­tempt to land the joke and get the crowd en­er­gized about the World Cup, which will be host­ed joint­ly by the U.S., Mex­i­co and Cana­da from Thurs­day through Ju­ly 19.

Ahead of the tour­na­ment, In­fan­ti­no has suc­cess­ful­ly co­zied up to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, cre­at­ing a peace prize that was award­ed to him and fre­quent­ly vis­it­ing the White House, in­clud­ing a stop last week, when he was pho­tographed along­side the Re­pub­li­can pres­i­dent ad­mir­ing changes out­side the Oval Of­fice.

In­fan­ti­no has strug­gled with vir­tu­al­ly every­one else.

In a deeply po­lar­ized coun­try, few things unite elect­ed lead­ers out­side the White House quite like skep­ti­cism of In­fan­ti­no and FI­FA, the gov­ern­ing body for the world’s most pop­u­lar sport. It’s a sen­ti­ment that cuts across the di­vide and spans from Wash­ing­ton to state cap­i­tals and city halls.

Tick­et prices at­tract bi­par­ti­san crit­i­cism

There are may­ors like Zohran Mam­dani of New York and Karen Bass of Los An­ge­les, De­moc­rats who’ve balked at tick­et prices. Mam­dani even­tu­al­ly se­cured 1,000 tick­ets for New York­ers at $50 per seat. The at­tor­neys gen­er­al in New York and New Jer­sey, al­so De­moc­rats, start­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to tick­et prices last month. In New Jer­sey, Gov. Mikie Sher­rill, an­oth­er De­mo­c­rat, de­mand­ed help from FI­FA to cov­er mil­lions of dol­lars in tran­sit costs be­fore ul­ti­mate­ly turn­ing to new ad­ver­tis­ing rev­enue to help cov­er the gap.

De­spite his ties to In­fan­ti­no, even Trump has crit­i­cized World Cup tick­et prices, telling The New York Post he wouldn’t pay the $1,000 prices to watch the U.S. play its open­ing game against Paraguay.

In an in­ter­view, Re­pub­li­can Sen. Todd Young of In­di­ana, who played Di­vi­sion 1 soc­cer at the U.S. Naval Acad­e­my, said FI­FA has been “de­tached from reg­u­lar peo­ple around the world.”

“It re­al­ly is a ca­bal run by elites,” Young added. “They re­al­ly have had prob­lems with cor­rup­tion over the years, and one re­al­ly does get the sense that they may over­look their sin­gu­lar mis­sion, which is to help grow the sport, es­pe­cial­ly among young peo­ple around the world who wouldn’t oth­er­wise have the re­sources to ac­cess soc­cer.”

“Every good soc­cer fan who loves in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball wish­es In­fan­ti­no would be a lit­tle less in the news and more pro­mot­ing the game,” Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash­ing­ton, said in an in­ter­view.

A FI­FA rep­re­sen­ta­tive didn’t re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment. FI­FA’s skep­tics said they were still en­thu­si­as­tic about the 48-team tour­na­ment. Some law­mak­ers said In­fan­ti­no was nav­i­gat­ing a chal­leng­ing po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment in the U.S.

In­fan­ti­no is “do­ing the job he needs to do in terms of cul­ti­vat­ing the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion,” said Rep. Darin La­Hood, R-Ill., the chair of the Con­gres­sion­al Soc­cer Cau­cus.

Sports are cen­tral to Trump’s sec­ond term

The World Cup kicks off a se­ries of events that are cen­tral to Trump’s sec­ond term ef­fort to bur­nish his im­age and lega­cy through his as­so­ci­a­tion with high-pro­file sport­ing events. He’ll hold a UFC bout on the South Lawn of the White House this month. It all cul­mi­nates with the Olympics in Los An­ge­les in 2028, the fi­nal year of Trump’s pres­i­den­cy.

But the soc­cer tour­na­ment opens against the back­drop of an in­tense­ly di­vid­ed po­lit­i­cal cli­mate in the U.S. — with Trump at the cen­ter. Just 37% of U.S. adults ap­prove of the way Trump is han­dling the pres­i­den­cy, ac­cord­ing to a May poll from The As­so­ci­at­ed Press-NORC Cen­ter for Pub­lic Af­fairs Re­search.

Still, Trump is in­ten­si­fy­ing ef­forts to put him­self in the mid­dle of Amer­i­can life, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the coun­try cel­e­brates the 250th an­niver­sary of its in­de­pen­dence. He has em­barked on a mas­sive ren­o­va­tion of Wash­ing­ton and plans to head­line “The Great Amer­i­can State Fair” on June 24.

Trump plans to at­tend the NBA Fi­nals be­tween the New York Knicks and the San An­to­nio Spurs on Mon­day. As the head of state, Trump is ex­pect­ed at the World Cup fi­nal in Ju­ly.

Trump’s World Cup chal­lenge

But the World Cup presents a chal­lenge for an ad­min­is­tra­tion that has placed ag­gres­sive im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment at the top of its agen­da.

The most vis­i­ble as­pects of Trump’s an­ti-im­mi­gra­tion mea­sures, in­clud­ing high-pro­file ar­rests in cities like Chica­go and Min­neapo­lis, have large­ly calmed. And the ad­min­is­tra­tion has sought to strike a wel­com­ing stance to­ward World Cup vis­i­tors, sus­pend­ing, for ex­am­ple, a re­quire­ment that those trav­el­ing from coun­tries that qual­i­fied for the tour­na­ment and have bought tick­ets pay as much as $15,000 in bonds to en­ter the U.S.

But the White House is still con­sid­er­ing hard-line op­tions to pun­ish per­ceived op­po­nents. Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Mark­wayne Mullin has threat­ened to halt cus­toms pro­cess­ing at air­ports serv­ing cities whose lo­cal gov­ern­ments re­sist Trump’s im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies. And in­tense clash­es at a New Jer­sey im­mi­gra­tion cen­ter about 10 miles (16 kilo­me­ters) from where the World Cup fi­nal will be held are a re­minder of the tests fac­ing the White House.

“I see the 2026 World Cup at the in­ter­sec­tion of two re­al­ly stark re­al­i­ties,” said Ash­leigh Huff­man, who was the chief of sports diplo­ma­cy at the State De­part­ment dur­ing the Biden and first Trump ad­min­is­tra­tions. “Un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to heal a coun­try that is deeply di­vid­ed and a world that is strug­gling. And un­prece­dent­ed scruti­ny. Every­thing that’s go­ing on has the pow­er to unite us, but it al­so is forc­ing con­ver­sa­tions around ac­cess and hu­man rights and im­mi­gra­tion and who gets in­clud­ed in this cel­e­bra­tion.”

Speak­ing to re­porters in Mi­a­mi last week, An­drew Giu­liani, the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor for the White House Task Force on the World Cup, said that “if you’re in­side the coun­try legal­ly, then you have noth­ing to wor­ry about.”

“We want peo­ple to be able to come here and en­joy this World Cup while al­so mak­ing sure that we can keep the coun­try safe,” he said.

There are signs that the po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions that course through so much of Amer­i­can cul­ture al­so ap­ply to the World Cup.

De­moc­rats and in­de­pen­dents are more like­ly than Re­pub­li­cans to say they plan to watch World Cup games, ac­cord­ing to an Ip­sos poll con­duct­ed in May. Ear­li­er polling found De­moc­rats were more like­ly to be “very” or “some­what” in­ter­est­ed in the match­es.

While Re­pub­li­cans are less ea­ger to tune in­to games, they feel a stronger sense of na­tion­al pride than De­moc­rats do from the U.S. team’s per­for­mance and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the World Cup. About two-thirds of Re­pub­li­cans said the U.S. team’s par­tic­i­pa­tion makes them proud to be Amer­i­can, com­pared with slight­ly less than half of De­moc­rats.

But for soc­cer en­thu­si­asts in Wash­ing­ton, the hope is that the tour­na­ment could pro­vide a rare break from the con­stant par­ti­san bat­tle.

“There’s a re­al op­por­tu­ni­ty to use this plat­form as a stage for uni­ty and com­mon­al­i­ty across na­tions,” Young said.

For Larsen, “when the whis­tle blows un­til the end, I’ll be yelling for red cards and cheer­ing goals.” —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by STEVEN SLOAN and SE­UNG MIN KIM | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Gisela Sa­lomon in Mi­a­mi con­tributed to this re­port.