World Cup 2026: Entry Pending
The tournament that claimed to unite the world now answers to a host that governs by blacklist – and to a governing body so compromised it can’t even pretend to object
With just under a year to go before the most ambitious World Cup in history, one question remains uncomfortably open: which teams will make it past the border?
The concern is real. Trump’s travel bans – paired with a second term defined by volatility and open contempt for half the planet – have made entry to the United States less a formality than a geopolitical gamble.
Promises of exemptions for players sound reassuring, right up until the next presidential meltdown. Teams may qualify on the pitch, only to be disqualified at passport control. And for fans, support staff or anyone with the wrong surname, the message is clear: the land of the free is now a gated community.
And then there are the teams who might boycott the tournament altogether...
Football without borders – except these ones
The joint US-Mexico-Canada bid won hosting rights in 2018 on a platform of inclusivity. Chief among its pledges was the promise of “non-discriminatory entry” for players, officials and fans – a line that ticked a very important FIFA box. Seven years on, however, the political weather has curdled. Armoured vehicles now roll through American cities like it’s Baghdad in 2004, not Los Angeles in 2025.
Trump’s return to office has revived his signature travel ban – this time expanded to 19 countries, with 12 facing a full entry prohibition and seven more subject to restricted visa categories. The fallout is already visible: visa backlogs are choking consulates, leaving thousands of tourist applications in bureaucratic purgatory, where paperwork goes to die.
For countries that have already qualified – like Iran – or are likely to qualify from those now blacklisted or tightly scrutinised – Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Libya, Somalia – the dilemma is obvious. The ban includes exemptions for “any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, support staff and immediate relatives”, but that’s a technicality, not a guarantee. The real question is: what happens if fans can’t get in? Or worse, if the bloviator-in-chief simply changes his mind. Given Trump’s track record for diplomacy by tantrum and policy by grudge, no one’s banking on stability.
Proposals to shift US-hosted matches to Canada or Mexico – if visa access can’t be guaranteed – are quietly gaining traction. But the logistics are brutal. Concacaf officials privately admit that such a move would require FIFA to invoke its “force majeure” clause, a legal grenade with massive financial fallout. It would also be unprecedented without the host nation withdrawing or defaulting. If anything, the speculation has tilted the other way: should tensions escalate, insiders say Canada or Mexico might walk – and, as former US Soccer president Alan Rothenberg put it, America “would pick up the games in a heartbeat”.
When the stands are empty, don’t blame the fans
Human rights groups warn that the cup is heading straight into the hands of the most restrictive host regime in the tournament’s history. Under Trump’s travel bans, the US has created what Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls “a hostile environment” for players, fans and journalists – a stage dressed for unity, surrounded by barricades.
Visa hurdles have multiplied. Applicants must now declare sex assigned at birth, a requirement HRW says erases trans and non-binary identities. At the border, even ticket-holders risk phone searches, interrogation and being detained if their social feeds criticise Trump. Pro-Palestinian activists have already had visas revoked.
Vice-President JD Vance, never one to miss a cue, has warned that anyone overstaying “will have to talk to Homeland Security”.
Andrea Florence of the Sport & Rights Alliance put it plainly: “Despite FIFA’s mantra that ‘football unites the world’, a World Cup held under discriminatory and exclusionary policies risks deepening social divides rather than bridging them.” She urged FIFA to demand binding legal guarantees that human rights won’t be sacrificed to keep the show on the road.
Amnesty International has gone further, stating that the Trump administration’s repression of migrants and free expression “poses immediate risks to the tournament’s legitimacy”. It’s demanding an independent audit of US entry procedures by November, just three months before final team workshops are set to begin.
International arrivals to the US are already down 12% since 2023. So much for the promised 3.7 million foreign spectators. For a tournament built on the fantasy of openness, the exclusions are starting to look like the point.
What price the beautiful game?
The World Cup was already limping toward farce, hobbled by the sight of FIFA president Gianni Infantino playing valet to Donald Trump.
In March, Trump unveiled a White House “Task Force for the World Cup”, with Infantino beside him, grinning like a goon. What was sold as a jobs-and-tourism push quickly mutated into a nationalist vanity project, with side-swipes at Canada and Mexico and economic forecasts best filed under fiction. Infantino gamely repeated the numbers – a $40 billion boost and 200,000 jobs – then disappeared into the wallpaper when asked about visas and civil liberties.
By May, the pantomime had gone fully global. Infantino skipped FIFA Congress to trail Trump through Qatar and Saudi Arabia, two regimes that treat sport as air freshener for state violence. UEFA delegates walked out. One accused him, accurately, of “turning FIFA into a political vehicle”.
The alliance has stripped FIFA’s official stance – neutral, apolitical, global – of its last pretence. What’s left is a governing body more comfortable with autocrats than accountability. Infantino now faces a choice he’s shown no appetite for: defend the principle of access or let a host nation’s politics redraw the boundaries of the global game.
As Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch put it, “Infantino’s legacy will be judged by whether he sides with human dignity or political opportunism.” At present, it’s not even close.
For millions of fans, this isn’t just about football. It’s about whether the world’s biggest stage still belongs to the world or whether it’s just another tool for strongmen to dictate the guest list.
Countdown to kick-off
In July, FIFA’s technical inspection team is set to release its venue-compliance report. If the visa issue remains unresolved, it may issue only conditional approvals for certain US stadiums.
By autumn, Washington is expected to roll out an “event-specific visa programme”. If the scheme exempts players and staff but leaves ordinary fans out in the cold, expect formal petitions to move matches out of the United States – not that anyone in power seems eager to blink first.
Then comes January 2026 and the final security and travel summit in Zurich, the last exit ramp for any federation weighing a boycott without triggering legal and financial blowback. After that, the costs rise, the optics sour and the window to salvage FIFA’s already precarious credibility begins to slam shut.