Trump’s World Cup
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What major sporting event is coming to North America?
The biggest sporting event in the world is coming to the US. No, not the Olympics. The FIFA Men's World Cup. 48 national teams, 16 host cities, and the final right here at MetLife Stadium. Now, if you're going, don't tell me, because I will either die of jealousy or make a stupid financial decision. The World Cup is my Super Bowl. And in fact, it's way bigger than the Super Bowl, with nine times the global viewers. It's also expected to attract a million tourists to the U.S. this summer. This, of course, has caught the attention of one President Trump, who is already seeking to shape the tournament in his image.
You look at the numbers, nobody's ever seen anything like the kind of numbers we're doing. The early ticket sales are through the roof.
So how and why did Donald Trump come to love soccer? That's coming up on Today Explained from Vox.
This is Today Explained.
My name's Adam Crafton, and I'm a reporter at The Athletic, primarily covering soccer, the business of soccer, the politics of soccer, the money of soccer, and all the stories that come with that.
Can you remind us just about the bidding process here? How did the U.S. and, of course, Canada and Mexico in conjunction even get these games in the first place?
The way it works is nations bid, and they bid quite a long way out. The process for this was kind of around 2017. It was actually during Trump's first presidency.
Well, thank you very much. We very much appreciate The fact that we have won a very important event, the World Cup in 2026, and we'll be hosting it along with Mexico and Canada.
It's interesting to look back on because now, you know, at any moment President Trump gets the opportunity to take credit for it, he will do. But actually, you know, we've reported on The Athletic. One of the motivating factors for joining forces was kind of this concern about whether America... the USA could win a bid by itself because this was coming off the back of, if you remember, the FBI's criminal investigations into FIFA and the DOJ's involvement.
We are here to announce the unsealing of charges and the arrests of individuals as part of our long-running investigation into bribery and corruption in the world of organized soccer.
And there was this concern about whether FIFA membership, which was kind of one member, one vote across the world, would actually go through just an American bid. So they joined forces with Canada and Mexico, slightly softer, I guess, landing. And also just this feeling at the time of, you know, Trump at the time was saying some pretty disparaging things. about other parts of the world. You'll be shocked to hear. You mean to tell me that Donald Trump is disparaging other countries? And even during the bidding process, I spoke to people part of that bid, and they would be going around saying to people things like, oh, you know, Trump doesn't really mean what he's saying, or don't worry, he won't be the president by the time this comes around.
So let's see, 2026, I won't be here. I won't be here. Maybe they'll extend the tent because I know they'd love to see something.
And yet here we are. And Trump, you know, I think Trump likes it basically because he can claim credit. He can say, I was here when we won this. I brought this. And now I'm here to deliver this.
Now, I really want to focus on FIFA's relationship, how they've oriented themselves to Donald Trump. You know, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has become someone, a kind of legend in the soccer world for both maybe good and bad reasons. You're going to help us understand a little more about him. Who is he and where did he come from?
So he is the son of Italian immigrants in Switzerland. As a child, they called him Piccolo, the little one.
Because they know what it means to be discriminated against. to be bullied as a foreigner in a foreign country, as a child at school, I was bullied because I had red hair and I had these red, how do you call them? Freckles.
Freckles. And he actually, he's got this kind of quite interesting multicultural background.
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