Donald Trump and "his FIFA soulmate" Gianni Infantino got slammed Tuesday by a European analyst who claimed America's president is destroying the world's leading sporting event.
In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Marina Hyde criticized how Trump and Infantino, "the Forrest Gump of Trump’s administration," are bringing politics to the World Cup — a tournament watched by a worldwide audience on billions.
"On Monday, the worst man in world sport was – yet again – to be found in the Oval Office, this time nodding along to Trump’s declaration that games could be moved from host cities for next summer’s World Cup if the US president deems there’s 'a problem' with security or that the cities are non-compliant in some other way," Hyde writes. The 2026 competition is set to be played at cities across the US, as well as Canada and Mexico.
Trump insinuated that he would move the location of matches if they are happening in cities run by "a Democrat/'communist,'" the writer explained — a clear reference to New York City's mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Though games are scheduled to be played at MetLife Stadium — the home of the New York Giants — that venue is actually in New Jersey.
Other cities hosting matches are Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, the San Francisco and Seattle
"Amazing that the FIFA president will gladly allow his tournaments to be held in any old violent autocracy but, for the purposes of the White House cameras at least, might need to draw the line at Boston," the writer added.
Trump's threat to remove a game from a host city has not once happened in the 95 years of the tournament's history and "should perhaps confirm the increasing global impression that the US might just be a uniquely backward country. Football fans considering buying expensive tickets and making even more expensive travel arrangements should consider that they are journeying somewhere so apparently volatile that even its own president talks its safety down."
It's a bad pattern for the organization, she wrote, pointing to previous entanglements between FIFA and governments.
"It used to be host governments that got co-opted into FIFA’s supra-national edicts – I remember South Africa being forced to set up highly dubious “FIFA World Cup Courts” for errant fans during the 2010 tournament. But now FIFA is a wholly owned tool of whoever will have it. Like all parasites, it relies on its host organisms," Hyde writes.
In May, Infantino reportedly attended Trump's Middle East peace summit, "causing him to be so late for Fifa’s own congress that even Uefa accused him of prioritising 'private political interests' and staged a delegate walk-out. Last month, Gianni was back on the political trail at Trump’s Gaza peace talks in Egypt, and earlier this month instituted some preposterous Fifa peace prize that he’s going to inaugurate at the final draw for the 2026 World Cup in Washington next month, quite possibly so that the orange organ grinder can be the first winner of it."
The FIFA leader was also seen "grinning along while Trump announced things such as the possible ordering of 'strikes' on one of the US’s 2026 World Cup co-host nations, Mexico. Perhaps the writing was on the wall when Gianni kicked off the year of ceaselessly grim politicking by attending Trump’s inauguration, where he was filmed giggling appreciatively during the bit where the US president announced he’d be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America."
Hyde also expects that the peace prize Infantino has floated will go to Trump, and possibly more than once.
"As for that peace prize, please don’t limit yourself to thinking it will be annual," Hyde writes. "The last time Gianni invented a prize – Fifa’s The Best Awards – he held them twice inside nine months. So there is every chance Trump could win it again before next summer’s World Cup kicks off. It’s all thanks to the least political man in world sport – or certainly, the least sporting man in world politics.