Russia was frozen out in the name of safety. So why is FIFA pushing ahead with a tournament hosted by nations directly involved in war?

In 2018, on the day the 2026 FIFA World Cup was awarded to the US, Canada, and Mexico, I vowed that under no circumstances would I work at it in any capacity, from commentator to host, journalist to presenter.

The reason was simple: five years of non-stop lawfare against the sport's global governing body (FIFA) and the bullying of delegates to vote against the preferred candidate, Morocco. I stayed true to the promise I made live on air with Capital Sports, bysaying noto a match commentator and host contract in February this year. A couple of weeks after turning down the gig, the US and Israel unleashed an unprovoked war on Iran, with Canada giving active support. Using FIFA's own logic that was applied to Russia and Belarus, this summer's event has to be postponed.

Not all are equal

Having been party to the process of freezing Russian football clubs and teams from international competition in the days following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, I took zero pleasure from being the person to break the news that UEFA (Europe's governing body) had 'pulled the trigger'. At that moment, Capital Sports was live on air with the then CEO of the All-Russian Footballers Union. The deal, worked out between the Russian Football Union (RFU), UEFA, and FIFA, gave us all a sense of relief.

It was sensible, pragmatic, and based upon the safety of players, officials, and fans. That Russian troops had gone into a neighboring nation was, to football officials, a secondary concern. Were war ever an actual concern, then the nations of the Coalition of the Willing, part 1, who took part in the illegal and actual full-scale invasion of Iraq 23 years ago this March, would be all out in the cold. Italy and Spain would not have won their World Cups in 2006 and 2010 respectively, and the US would not have been awarded hosting rights for 2026. Yet the three aforementioned nations, plus another 48 including the UK, Latvia, Lithuania, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, have continued to be welcome in the football fraternity.

However, this is not 2003 and the idea of staging a mega-event in two nations up to their knees in blood is not just reprehensible from a moral standpoint, or appalling from a human one, it's patently unsafe. Award-winning sportswriter Andrew FlinttoldCapital Sports in December: "It's a fact that football grounds are too wide open for attack... safety cannot be guaranteed for players and fans alike."

The main reason for freezing Russia from world football was safety, and the multitude of deliberate Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure since 2022 has proven the RFU/UEFA/FIFA decision to be correct. Yet FIFA has not even considered postponing the World Cup or removing it from the US and Canada, instead proceeding with qualification matches in Europe. And the reason is clear: the US is running the world's game.

'The Washington Candidate' runs FIFA

In November 2010, two good things happened to football: Russia and Qatar were awarded World Cup hosting rights for 2018 and 2022 respectively. At the time I warned, live on Irish state broadcaster RTE Radio 1, that it would be bad for FIFA and Russia. Bad enough that England lost the race to host the 2018 jamboree, but Washington was infuriated at losing to Qatar. The pair of crybullies couldn't accept that the world's most popular sport was not theirs to rule. Moscow, immediately, landed in the crosshairs of the Anglosphere and their European lackeys, with constant attacks on Russia - from doping scandals to regime change pushes and everything in between - that lasted until the tournament kicked off at Luzhniki Stadium. Qatar's 'punishment' continued throughout its well-received event. However, by 2018, football's global governing body had been gutted. The US had its people in charge of FIFA after a decapitation strike by Donald Trump's first predecessor, Barack Obama.

To those of us working in and reporting on sport, it was clear that Obama used lawfare to bring FIFA to heel. As well as the FBI arresting or detaining dozens of FIFA officials, they forced out the president, Switzerland's Sepp Blatter, and UEFA's top dog Michel Platini. France's Platini, one of the sport's all-time great players, was universally accepted as Blatter's heir apparent for the FIFA top job. By the end of 2015, Obama had effected a complete clearout of anyone willing to stand up to the US, and in February 2016 UEFA Secretary General Gianni Infantino, the Swiss-born son of Italian immigrants, took over and immediately passed a raft of reforms handed to him from Washington. Infantino had been lockstep with Platini, but he was ready to 'play ball' with the new sheriff in town.

On the eve of the World Cup in 2018, delegates from national associations gathered in Moscow to vote for hosting rights of the 2026 tournament. The US-Mexico-Canada bid won despite the vast majority of delegates opposing it. Almost all wanted Morocco to win and the anger was such that Spain abstained, its delegate telling me: "It's a sham. Washington got their man and he's handed them this. It's not the Manchurian Candidate, it's the Washington Candidate."

So who is this teflon man who runs the world's game on behalf of the US?

'Cup of Shame'

"We've made it the cup of shame," a caller to Britain's Talksport radio wailed last December. This after the Trump administration removed visa bans on three of the seven Iranian delegates from attending the World Cup draw. Iran had threatened to boycott the high-profile gala in order to bring sense to the senseless. Trump was promised a "big shiny trophy" another caller opined. For his generosity, the US leader received the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, to compensate for not winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Football fans around the world groaned, but Infantino "had to pay homage to his boss," according to former football club owner Simon Jordan.

Last May, Infantino arrived two hours late to the 75th FIFA Congress in Asuncion, Paraguay, having spent the previous days in Trump's entourage during the US president's trip to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Point of note, Infantino owns an apartment in Qatar and two of his kids go to school there. UEFA delegates, in a pre-planned display of theatrical strop, walked out. Arrive two hours late for a meeting and you raise the European ire, murder 150+ children in an Iranian school, silence. Flatten a country and kill tens of thousands, FIFAwill sendyou money for the development of facilities on stolen land and UEFA will allow your clubs and teams in competition.

Infantino knew it was theater, nothing more. Because the UEFA delegates are still silent when citizens of Algeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Tunisia, and Cape Verde, as well as Iran, allfacevisa discrimination. All six countries have qualified to play in this summer's event, but some of their players and staff might not be allowed into the US. And just last month, Canadarefusedentry to Iran's football federation president for the FIFA congress in Vancouver. The same congress where Infantinotried, and failed, to get the Israeli FA president and his Palestinian counterpart to shake hands.

And yet, one FIFA insider told me that Infantino is a man "at war with himself." Infantino has, in a private capacity, contributed to charities for refugees in Lebanon, Gaza, Jordan, and at least two other countries in the region. He has "gotten wealthy Qataris to send humanitarian relief to the West Bank. I have no time for the man, but give him this much," the person told me on condition of anonymity. They reminded me that not only is Infantino's wife Lebanese, but he is too, having received his citizenship this year. So, then, why are the US and Canada still allowed to host the World Cup and why is Israel still in UEFA competition?

Playing with fire

Although some UEFA member nations have spoken out against the inclusion of Israeli teams and clubs in European competitions, not one has refused to play against them. Criminal hooligans attached to Maccabi Tel Aviv have been banned from many European stadia and cities, yet even common sense and public safety went out the window as British politicians cried anti-Semitism this year when local police in Birminghamwantedto reduce the chances of disorder at a game in 2025.

When Ireland was drawn to play Israel in the UEFA European Nations League, set to take place this autumn, the government and Football Association of Ireland (FAI) issued mealy-mouthed excuses that didn't wash. "Sport should be above politics," said the CEO of the FAI, an organization which three years earlier refused to allow Russian children to play in European competitions. A refusal that the head of UEFAsaidwas "directly discriminating" against Russian kids. After parroting the government line on Israel, the FAI was duly rewarded by the government, with Dublin giving the debt-laden outfit 'extra time' torepaya €1.5 million loan. Complicity in war crimes paid off for Irish football.

If the global outrage at the continued devastation of Gaza, the invasion of Lebanon, and attacks on Iran are not enough reasons for FIFA to reconsider hosting a major event in the US this summer, then nothing will be. There has never been such a scandal-ridden, yet totally overlooked, World Cup in history. While Russia and Qatar were, rightly, scrutinized for a variety of reasons from human/workers rights to construction delays and corruption in the bidding processes, the US-Canada-Mexico version has skated completely free by comparison. Not a single mainstream football 'writer' has asked questions over fan safety in the US or Canada, in relation to the war on Iran. No nations, apart from Iran, have stated they will boycott the tournament. And Iran did so only after Trump threatened it.

Football lives inside an incestuous, self-obsessed, and isolated bubble. The sport is riddled with corruption on all levels, from doping to match-fixing, child abuse to money laundering, although there has never been a moment greater than right now for those who genuinely love the sport to make their voices heard. Allowing the US and Canada to host the World Cup this summer is peak football and peak insanity. Lives will be put at risk, legacies destroyed, and only the refusal of qualified countries to participate will make an impact. And the chance of that happening? About as much as my replacing Gianni Infantino as FIFA boss, zero.

(RT.com)