US President Donald Trump has said Iran remain welcome to take part in the 2026 World Cup but suggested they perhaps should not attend for safety reasons. Iran, for its part, has argued the United States — not Iran — should be excluded from the tournament, which begins on 11 June. FIFA President Gianni Infantino meanwhile insists the World Cup can unite people.
FIFA’s statutes do not bar countries at war from hosting events, though Article 3 commits the organisation to upholding international human rights standards. Critics note tensions between that pledge and some recent actions: Infantino presented Trump with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December 2025 and attended the launch of Trump’s “Board of Peace,” despite Article 4’s call for political neutrality.
Alan Tomlinson, a University of Brighton professor who studies the social history of sport and FIFA, told DW that both Trump and Infantino “do as they please without serious commitment to the democratic principles of the organisations that they represent.”
The US entering a conflict with Iran is not the only issue prompting fans to question travel or even whether matches should go ahead. Before the war began on 28 February, concerns had already arisen over ICE round-ups of migrants, travel bans on certain nationalities, visa hurdles and ticket pricing. The 2026 tournament is spread across the US, Canada and Mexico, but 78 of the 104 matches are scheduled in the United States. Calls for a European boycott flared earlier, during controversies around Trump’s threats involving Greenland.
Will the Iran war become the decisive factor for 2026? Jake Wojtowicz, a researcher in the philosophy of sport and co-author of Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan (2023), told DW he doubts Iran will be the tipping point — though he thinks perhaps it should be. He argues much of the debate is about perception: the US holds outsized cultural influence in the West, so its actions attract different scrutiny than nations like Qatar. That familiarity can blunt criticism.
Both Wojtowicz and Tomlinson warn of another danger: that the spectacle of the World Cup can dull moral judgment. Wojtowicz said people risk conflating sport with politics, focusing on on-field heroics while overlooking policies such as deportations or harsh immigration enforcement. Tomlinson added that a host country at war, led by a leader who accepts a controversial peace prize and is months away from staging a global sporting event, crosses a moral line — though economic and commercial forces often override such concerns.
DW contacted Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for comment; neither replied. Both organisations had publicly urged FIFA to address human rights issues at the end of 2025. Observers also point to Infantino’s wider conduct: accepting an award from Vladimir Putin after the 2018 Russia World Cup, backing Qatar’s 2022 tournament (even residing in the country during preparations), and assigning the 2034 event to Saudi Arabia. Ahead of 2026, Infantino has taken up residency in Miami, close to Trump — a move critics say undermines the image of a neutral, democratic global organisation and amplifies FIFA’s ethical conflicts.
Historically, major sports events have persisted despite political controversies. A 2025 paper in Political Psychology by Paul Bertin and Pauline Grippa found many fans who planned to boycott the 2022 World Cup ultimately did not. Wojtowicz sees that draw as making broad ethical boycotts unlikely, but he urges active engagement: calling out attempts to use the tournament to polish reputations and practising small acts of ethical resistance so the World Cup does not eclipse moral scrutiny.
Edited by: Matt Pearson