Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
the kings of the world. We are a sports organization. We try to do our best. Maybe sometimes it's good as well to just, you know, chill.
It's really important to be able to carry two ideas that yes, this competition is built on greed and also that at its best, it is this wonderful unifying spectacle. The horror and the beauty come from the same place.
Chapter 2: What controversies surround the 2026 FIFA World Cup?
From the Guardians today on Focus, this is The Latest with me, Annie Kelly. Johnny, Lou, you're a columnist and a sports writer for The Guardian. And after much anticipation, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is now underway. Billions of people are going to be tuning in over the next six weeks. This time around, it's being jointly hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico.
But I think for many of us, you know, about to start watching it, it is already coming with some quite conflicting feelings. due to what's been happening in the run-up to the tournament starting. So what have been some of the controversies that have dogged this tournament already?
Gosh, how long have you got? I mean, obviously there's nothing new about going into a World Cup with this slight sense of unease. Eight years ago, we went to Putin's Russia. Four years ago, we went to Qatar. This time, where do you start?
Chapter 3: How has the US immigration crackdown affected the tournament?
I guess the crackdown, the US immigration crackdown that has led to a referee being turned away at the border, players being questioned at customs, Iranian staff and their team not being able to stay on American soil, having to move their base to Mexico, the bans on fans from countries like Senegal and Haiti, who won't be able to travel to the tournament.
Then, you know, you have things like ticket prices, you know, four figures, five figures even for some of the big games. You have little things like the prices of train tickets, shuttle buses, parking, this sense that a tournament that has always been
thought of itself as being for everyone, global, universal, uniting, it's become a tournament essentially for the super rich, has shown its disdain to the ordinary fan. So yeah, these are just a few of the issues before you even get into some of the sporting issues like the heat and...
bloated 48-team tournament, which is going to lead to a lot of, I think, quite meaningless games, certainly in the final round of group games. So I think it all feeds into this sense that everyone has a favourite World Cup memory. Everyone has this idea of the World Cup idealised in their mind. Whatever it was supposed to be, it's not this.
Chapter 4: What are the implications of FIFA's financial model?
I think a lot of the controversy has been the flashpoint of not allowing the Somali referee Omar Artan, a FIFA referee who had all of his paperwork in place, him not being allowed to enter the country and comments being made associating him with terrorist groups. That's been particularly shocking to a lot of people, hasn't it?
And in response, we had FIFA's president Gianni Infantino saying, we are not kings of the world who can rule over governments and police forces. It's important sometimes to just chill. I mean, there have been examples of FIFA being able to exert pressure on host nations before in previous tournaments.
But his response felt, you know, it kind of exposed what feels like a really stark power imbalance this time around between FIFA and the US, one of the host nations. We haven't really seen this before, it doesn't feel like. Is it a bit more a case of, you know, FIFA needs America now much more than America needs FIFA? Yeah.
I think you're spot on.
Chapter 5: How does FIFA's relationship with host nations differ this time?
And that's something that is particularly new about this tournament. You know, eight years ago in Russia... FIFA was able to persuade Putin to relax his incredibly strict immigration laws and allow fans traveling to the tournament, visa-free travel, free public transport across Russia.
In the past, when Brazil were hosting in 2014, they were able to threaten local venues with the stripping of hosting rights if they didn't get their construction projects on schedule. FIFA has always been able to exert this leverage on host countries because, to a large extent, those countries needed the World Cup.
They wanted to use it for the global projection, for the prestige, for the tourism revenue. And these factors aren't really applicable to the US. The US doesn't really need this World Cup. The GDP boost it's going to get is minimal, about 0.1%, according to some estimates. And it has no real desire to...
Chapter 6: Why was the Somali referee barred from entering the US?
seemingly, to want to project itself in a more friendly or softer or more appealing manner to the rest of the world. Quite the opposite, in fact. This may be the first World Cup where it actually wants to show its disdain for foreigners and that wants to invite the world to America to tell them how much inferior they are to the master race.
I mean, you said that America doesn't, it's not going to get a massive kind of cash boost from this tournament, but FIFA certainly will. And is that at heart what this is all about? Is it just a massive cash grab then for FIFA?
Yes, it is. It is a massive cash grab for FIFA. I mean, Gianni Infantino, when he was elected as FIFA president in 2016, it was his brief, his power base brief. was and is the ability to generate as much revenue growth for FIFA and by extension, the World Cup, which generates the huge proportion of their revenue as possible.
Chapter 7: What are the criticisms of FIFA President Gianni Infantino?
The economic model of the World Cup, all of the revenue that is generated through ticket sales, through hospitality packages, parking, merchandise, even food and drink in the stadium, as well as broadcast rights and licensing. All of that goes to FIFA. None of that goes to the host cities or the host country.
So that's why FIFA has been so desperate to take this tournament to the US market because of the prices they were able to charge and the access to that market. And those stadiums and having that canvas almost upon which to charge pretty much whatever it feels like.
I mean, in one of your recent pieces, you called Infantino a coward. He's certainly doing a very kind of slippery pivot from wannabe statesman to lowly football administrator when he's come up against things like Trump's immigration crackdown. Can you just explain why it is that you did call him a coward?
People I've spoken to who know him or who have dealt with him describe him as quite a small, weak man, a man who basically goes weak at the knees in the face of power and money.
Chapter 8: Will the controversies overshadow the World Cup matches?
And I think that makes him quite malleable. to autocrats and dictators and people who want to pay top dollar for the World Cup tournament.
I think it's what explains a lot of his obsequiousness towards Putin, towards the Al-Tanis in Qatar, and certainly towards the Trump administration to the point where he's sort of wearing Trump baseball caps and borrowing his campaign slogans, turning up at his inauguration, awarding that grotesque FIFA Peace Prize. That's why I called him a coward, because I think
True leadership is about having a moral compass, about having a purpose and a direction and being able to stand up for what you think and what you believe. And I don't think Infantino's done that at all. I think Infantino has essentially crumbled in the face of genuine conviction. He has the keys to the world's most powerful cultural force. And this is what he's done with it.
And I guess really sadly, you know, the idea of a problematic FIFA president, a morally bankrupt World Cup, it's not a new idea, is it? I mean, the last World Cup in Qatar, we know hundreds of migrant workers died for that tournament to happen. And then as soon as the football started, it kind of seemed that everyone just moved on.
I mean, migrant worker rights in Qatar have barely been mentioned since. Do you think that the same will happen here? Do you think that once the matches start playing, once the superstars come out on the field, all of this controversy will just go away?
Sadly, I think it will to a large extent. That is ultimately what Infantino and FIFA and the Trump administration are banking on, that once the matches get underway, which they did last night, everyone will just forget about it. It will sort of evaporate away.
That's what makes football so worth buying if you're a dictator or you're running a liberal regime or you want to project yourself because football, Once the ball starts moving, people are utterly transfixed by that. And, you know, like you say, in Qatar...
that tournament is not remembered for migrant worker policies or LGBT rights or all of the kind of iniquities and backroom deals that led to that tournament being awarded. It's remembered for potentially the greatest final in the history of the tournament, that Argentina-France final, which we all watched and we all enjoyed. And that, I think, is the rub.
This thing that we love so much, we can't tear our eyes away from it.
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