War, racism and Trump: Has corruption overshadowed the 2026 World Cup? Instead, the 2026 World Cup may be remembered for dodgy calls on the pitch and two men off the pitch: Donald Trump, determined to use the tournament to bolster his image, and Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president who seemed only too willing to bend the game to the whims of a capricious US president. Put aside the astronomical ticket prices, the punishing transport costs between matches, and the extreme heat.
It became clear early on that this would be an imperial World Cup, shaped by an imperial US presidency. The cloud of corruption and influence-peddling hanging over the current tournament has left some World Cup fans looking back wistfully at the tenure of disgraced former Fifa president Sepp Blatter, who Infantino succeeded. Blatter wrote on X last week that "football must never become a playground for political power".
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Some fans have even called for the controversial 90-year-old Swiss administrator, who is banned from participating in Fifa activities until 2027, to return to football's governing body as president and "make corruption classy again". Others noted that "Infantino and Fifa are so corrupt that even Sepp Blatter, the chief of corruption, is shocked." Here, Middle East Eye takes a look at the decisions that have clouded the beautiful game's most beautiful tournament. The 'peace prize' As the US and Israel were planning to attack Iran on 28 February, Trump was preparing to receive the first, and likely only, “Fifa Peace Prize”.
In December last year, at a gathering hosted for him in Washington, the president walked on stage at what was then called The Donald J Trump and the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts - renamed by Trump in his own honour and later reversed by the…
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