Germany is unlikely to stage high-profile political protests at the 2026 World Cup, several experts and officials say, after the backlash that followed the team’s measured gestures at the 2022 tournament in Qatar. Rudi Völler, the national team’s sporting director, recently said there would be no gag order but added that “it cannot be that it’s being talked about, practically on a matchday like with this disaster in Qatar,” referring to the One Love armband controversy and teams’ eventual decision to drop the initiative after FIFA warned of sanctions. Germany also posed for a pre-match photo with players holding their mouths covered before the Japan game, a move that drew heavy criticism at the time.
Observers argue the criticism was amplified by Germany’s poor results in Qatar. Jürgen Mittag, a sports politics professor at the German Sport University Cologne, told DW that the team looked “symbolically strong but sportingly weak,” and that public reaction might have been different if Germany had progressed further in the tournament.
Michael Mutz, a social sciences-in-sports professor at Justus-Liebig University Giessen, doubts the German Football Association (DFB) will pursue a conspicuous political agenda in the United States. “I can’t imagine that the DFB will actively pursue a political agenda against the host country again after the negative experiences in Qatar,” he said. Mutz also warned of accusations of double standards: vocally condemning Qatar but staying silent about the U.S. risks undermining credibility, a trade-off the DFB appears ready to accept.
Mittag sees structural reasons for the shift away from values-first sports diplomacy. He points to a decline in unified EU foreign-policy action and rising geopolitical tensions that limit the backing Germany can expect in sports and diplomatic forums. One telling episode, he says, was Germany’s failure to build broad support for keeping Russia and Belarus out of the Olympics. That disappointment prompted a strategic rethink: Germany wants to preserve its position on values, but it is increasingly reluctant to foreground moral arguments that lack reliable international backing.
The DFB’s new CEO, Andreas Rettig, appointed in 2023, is seen as someone who could rebuild alliances and strengthen German influence in committees. But his attempt to start pre-tournament talks on contentious issues ahead of Euro 2024 met with little enthusiasm from regional associations, underlining the limits of top-down initiatives.
Voices inside Germany are mixed. Oke Göttlich, president of St. Pauli and a DFB vice president, advised recently against traveling to the U.S. “given the current situation in the country.” By contrast, Bayern Munich and Germany captain Joshua Kimmich said after a Champions League match that he would “no longer be taking part in the political discussion.” The DFB itself has remained publicly neutral.
In practice, experts expect both the association and players to avoid headline-grabbing gestures that could backfire or be read as inconsistent. Public engagement may also fall: TV audiences dipped during the Qatar World Cup, and Mittag predicts viewership could drop again in 2026, partly due to inconvenient kickoff times and as a mild form of protest by some fans.
When Germany arrives in the United States, players and staff will be asked about the political and social context of the tournament. How they respond will be shaped by many factors — not least their performances on the pitch. Mutz notes that national identification hinges less on political postures than on whether the team is likeable, accessible and successful. In polarized times the national team can still act as a unifying symbol, but that role is weakened if the team is perceived as overly political.
This article was updated on January 26, 2026 to include the St. Pauli president’s statement.