Joseph Blatter, former president of FIFA, expressed this Monday his skepticism regarding the organization of the 2026 World Cup, which will take place in the summer, in the USA, Mexico and Canada. “To fans, I have just one piece of advice: stay away from the United States”, reads a publication on the social network X. The phrase is a quote taken from an interview with Mark Pieth, a lawyer who worked for FIFA on an anti-corruption initiative within the organization, to the Swiss newspaper Tangez scoreboard. But, shortly afterwards, Sepp Blatter, who is also implicated in the interview, added that Pieth was right “to question this World Cup”.
In the interview in question, published on Thursday, January 22, Mark Pieth is reticent about organizing the competition in an “increasingly authoritarian” state, where “immigration policy is linked to the marginalization of certain fans”. He adds that “if a State has become a pariah State, it should not be allowed to organize the World Cup. This is stipulated in FIFA’s statutes and also in its human rights code.”
However, Pieth admits that it is difficult to imagine a possible boycott, given that, in addition to the previous editions, in Russia, in 2018, and in Qatar, in 2022, “if we look at the future, the 2034 World Cup, in terms of human rights, was awarded to the worst of the worst. That country is Saudi Arabia.”
The World Cup awards to Russia and Qatar were confirmed in December 2010, in an episode that heightened suspicions of corruption within FIFA. The announcement was made by then-president Joseph Blatter, who led the organization between 1998 and 2015, the year in which he resigned, admitting that the organization needed “profound restructuring”.
Regarding the task of organizing the tournaments, Mark Pieth states that “this is the mechanism of autocrats who need sport to put themselves in the spotlight”, adding that the current FIFA president feels “more comfortable” in the company of authoritarian leaders.
“Gianni Infantino bows down to them and flatters them. Unfortunately, this is widespread behavior in sports federations: the lack of shame with which managers try to ingratiate themselves with autocrats. Blatter also had no qualms about doing so, but now he is brazen. Infantino plays this game with mastery. See, for example, the way he awarded the peace prize [a Trump].”
On December 5th, during the World Cup draw, FIFA decided to debut its peace prize. The award, Infantino said on stage, was awarded to Donald Trump on behalf of “billions of football fans around the world”, for “extraordinary actions” to promote peace in the world.
Following the event, a complaint was filed with the FIFA Ethics Committee, alleging “repeated violations” of FIFA’s duty of political neutrality by its president, and requesting an investigation into the process that led to the award of the first peace prize, reported the The Athletic.
The complaint was filed by FairSquare, a non-profit organization defending the rights of migrant workers in situations of political repression and in sport.
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