{"id":388,"date":"2026-07-19T11:14:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T11:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=388"},"modified":"2026-07-19T11:14:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T11:14:01","slug":"trump-made-the-world-cup-another-stage-for-his-cruelty-and-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=388","title":{"rendered":"Trump made the World Cup another stage for his cruelty and corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I visited Russia with friends for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and it was one of the great trips of my life.<\/p>\n

Read more JD Vance is taking the vice presidency in a strange new direction<\/a><\/p>\n

Entering the country was a breeze. Between chasing matches in three cities, we drifted about with no particular agenda other than entertaining ourselves. We wandered through parks, drank vodka, admired the beautiful architecture, temporarily picked up smoking cigarettes, looked at art and partied day and night. Russia is not known for a warm public culture, but it was easy in such a festive atmosphere to make local friends \u2014 some of whom I stayed in touch with long after that summer. The experience went so smoothly, and I felt so good about the experience, that between returning to the States and the end of the World Cup, I somehow found myself rooting for Russia\u2019s team (alongside others) as it progressed, even suspiciously so, in the tournament. When I think back on the trip, I remember the rich Russian culture that rarely gets covered in the Western press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A political scientist might describe my fond memories of my Russia World Cup trip as a perfect example of the efficacy of sportswashing \u2014 that is, governments staging sports events to launder their reputation and divert attention from their misdeeds. The World Cup brightened my perspective on Russia: A well-run tournament, organic social connections and pleasant vibes improved my feelings toward the country. I spent little time thinking about Russia\u2019s vicious ruler or authoritarian repression, and my stories about the fun surrounding the games I saw likely encouraged others to consider traveling there, or at least to think of the country a bit more positively.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump was handed a golden opportunity to boost America\u2019s image to international visitors here for the 2026 World Cup. He is the reason, after all, the world is suffering from higher oil prices. He can\u2019t find his way out of a mortifying war he\u2019s clearly losing, tourism is plummeting, and his international reputation is in swift decline.<\/p>\n

But he blew it.<\/p>\n

Trump achieved the opposite<\/em> of sportswashing. His policies were hostile to visitors, he injected politics into the tournament, and he even brazenly meddled with what was happening on the pitch. In sum, his style of hosting cast the U.S. in an unusually<\/em> negative<\/em> light during the most widely watched cultural event in the world. Trump\u2019s inability to see beyond his most reflexive impulses to throw red meat to his base sabotaged the larger opportunity to impress the world and soften his image. His failure to be the welcoming, gracious tournament host mirrors the way he operates with increasing frequency in domestic politics \u2014 blinkered, self-defeating. Trump\u2019s modus operandi is one own goal after another, and an embarrassment for the United States.<\/p>\n

World Cup hosts have often relaxed their entrance policies to simplify and expedite the arrival of World Cup ticket holders. Notably, this is true even for countries with restrictive immigration policies, including Russia and Qatar, the last two World Cup hosts. But for far too many people in 2026, a\u00a0World Cup trip was hellish, if not impossible. This year, The New Yorker observed, is \u201cthe first time a World Cup host has blocked visitors from participating countries en masse.\u201d Fans from more than a quarter of the countries participating in the tournament faced bans, high rates of visa rejections or restrictions from the U.S. The head of the Jordanian fan association told the BBC he took more than 40 documents with him to his visa appointment, and his application was rejected. \u201cIf the head of the fan association was refused, who will be accepted?\u201d he asked. (The U.S. does not provide explanations for why visas are rejected.) A Somali referee was not allowed in the U.S. to do his job. A number of individual players, including team members from Iraq and Haiti, struggled to get visas or were detained in airports. Many sports journalists from the Middle East and Africa were denied entry.<\/p>\n

The Iranian soccer team got treated like a band of murderers instead of elite professional athletes. Many members of the team\u2019s support staff were barred from entering the U.S., and the team was forced to move its base training camp from the U.S. to Mexico. It was also given less time in the U.S. to prepare and recover after matches. The U.S. government\u2019s mistreatment of the team and its clear attempt to stigmatize it likely affected Iran\u2019s play. In short, the Trump administration wrongly disadvantaged and punished the team from a country he is upset about losing to in a war.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018The Odyssey\u2019 is majestic \u2013 and makes its conservative critics look foolish<\/a><\/p>\n

Also during the tournament, the Trump administration made social media posts supporting the U.S. team laced with right-wing nationalist rhetoric, including the slogan \u201cDEFEND THE HOMELAND.\u201d Such posts are antithetical to the World Cup, a tournament widely held as one of the world\u2019s foremost examples of international harmony and exchange.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s most egregious misstep was aggressively lobbying FIFA President Gianni Infantino to reverse FIFA\u2019s one-game suspension for U.S. striker Folarin Balogun after he received what appears to have been an undeserved red card in the the U.S. match with Bosnia-Herzegovina. FIFA reversed the suspension, which The New York Times noted marked \u201cthe first time since 1962 that FIFA has allowed a player to appear in a game when they would have been suspended after being sent off in the World Cup.\u201d FIFA did not<\/em> overturn the call itself, it only rescinded part of the punishment \u2014 and only after Trump leaned on the venal Infantino, who has long maintained a fawning posture toward Trump. If FIFA were not cartoonishly corrupt, it would have resisted\u00a0pressure from Trump to protect the integrity of the tournament. But FIFA\u2019s corruption is legendary, and after it rolled over, Trump boasted about the sordid affair.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An Austrian friend told me he thought the red card call against Balogun unfairly robbed the American team of a valuable player and he initially wanted\u00a0the U.S. to win its next match. But after Trump\u2019s intervention, he flipped and rooted for Belgium, and was satisfied by the 4-1 result.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure he wasn\u2019t alone. Belgium\u2019s team went viral mocking Trump, and its soccer association posted on X, \u201cOverturn this.\u201d Trump injected the corrupt kleptocratic energy he governs with\u00a0into a global sporting event that\u2019s designed to be meritocratic, and not only did it not help the U.S. prevail, it resulted in terrible vibes and a burst of cynicism about the event. I couldn\u2019t help but notice an uptick in social media conspiracy theories of FIFA rigging refereeing and results after the episode, a growing suspicion that everything was for sale.<\/p>\n

All the vices Trump has displayed during this tournament \u2014 win at any cost, revel in cruelty, act with hostility toward outsiders \u2014 only make sense as an attempt to excite his shrinking die-hard base. But successful, rational autocrats know how to cater to different audiences and think strategically about unique opportunities, and Trump does care about how he\u2019s received by the international community. A number of Russians bitterly noted to me during the 2018 World Cup that authorities had relaxed law enforcement and taken a shockingly lax attitude toward street demonstrations. They considered it Russia\u2019s attempt to present a deceptive picture of an open society to visitors. Trump could have taken a monthlong break from his usual culture wars \u2014 at no cost to his domestic standing \u2014 and built up some international political capital. But he can\u2019t help himself. Trump could not even for a brief moment imagine a whole world of people who simply want to see honorable competition and delight in being together for the sake of being together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

None of this is to say that most fans who made it to the U.S. didn\u2019t have a grand time and experience some heart-warming cultural exchanges. But the good feelings of our visitors happened despite <\/em>Trump and his myriad offenses. The tournament succeeded in generating joy despite<\/em> Trump\u2019s unholy alliance with Infantino. Instead of allowing those visitors to focus on the best of America, he showed them the worst of himself.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump revived his election lies. The people who run elections are bracing for the midterms.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instead of allowing visitors to focus on the best of America, he showed them the worst of himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump made the World Cup another stage for his cruelty and corruption - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=388\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump made the World Cup another stage for his cruelty and corruption - Long Distance Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Instead of allowing visitors to focus on the best of America, he showed them the worst of himself.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=388\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Long Distance Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-19T11:14:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=388#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=388\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0206dfa2bde56a4792f75b5b97027e43\"},\"headline\":\"Trump made the World Cup another stage for his cruelty and corruption\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-19T11:14:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=388\"},\"wordCount\":1429,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=388#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/8052afdba707600569e51367628e8fa3.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"US\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=388#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=388\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=388\",\"name\":\"Trump made the World Cup another stage for his cruelty and corruption - 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