Raids and fear cast a large shadow over Club World Cup's big launch
"When Donald Trump came in the laws just changed and it's hard for immigrants now … you've got a lot of people being deported, people who have been in the United States for two decades.
"It's not nice, it's not right when someone who hasn't committed a crime has to go back somewhere.
'I just don't respect somebody like [Trump] that deports so many people and hurts so many families … this country was built on immigrants. Nobody's from here.'
It seems unlikely this is the kind of hard political messaging Gianni Infantino was hoping to associate himself with when Fifa booked the New York rapper French Montana as its headline act at Saturday's Club World Cup opening ceremony, a global spectacular taking place against a background of unrest over Trump's immigration and repatriation policies.
French Montana moved to New York from Morocco aged 13 and has been outspoken in his support for the rights of undocumented US immigrants, although his place on the political spectrum has been muddied a little this year by an unexpected appearance on the Lara Trump track No Days Off.
His comments in interviews in 2019 and 2018, and his presence at the centre of Fifa's publicity for the launch night of its $1bn show, will provide a deeply uncomfortable reminder of the perils of fawning over divisive political leaders.
Infantino has spent the past year energetically cosying up to the US president, attending his inauguration in a state of high excitement and even delaying Fifa's annual meeting in order to follow Trump around a little longer on his visit to Qatar.
French Montana is at least in tune with the Fifa zeitgeist. Already this week the news that officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will be part of the security operation for Saturday's game between Al Ahly and Inter Miami has sparked widespread disquiet.
Inter Miami co-owner David Beckham watches as forward Lionel Messi does drills during a training session. Pic: AP Photo/Lynne Sladky.
A year out from the World Cup that the US is sharing with Canada and Mexico, there is concern not only that supporters may stay away over fear of document checks and status wrangles, but that Fifa's showpiece men's club event is in danger of being piggybacked on as a political event by the Trump administration.
CBP has been openly promoting its role at Fifa's tournament for the past few months under the hashtag #CBPxFIFA. This came to a head this week as it ended up deleting a Facebook post that stated its agents would be 'suited and booted and ready to provide security for the first round of games'.
The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that Ice and CBP officers will be present at Club World Cup fixtures, saying: 'All non-American citizens need to carry proof of their legal status.'
This is not without recent precedent. CBP often operates at big sporting events, including February's Super Bowl in New Orleans.
But it isn't hard to see how this might be interpreted as containing an element of threat. Ice officers are being escorted around Los Angeles by the US national guard, a hugely controversial move that has contributed to the current unrest in the city.
CBP has also declined so far to address the reasons for the removal of its post about Fifa's grand jamboree, which fuelled fears the event may be rolled into the aggressive enforcement of Trump's immigration policy.
A glance at CBP's X feed makes plain this is by no means a politically neutral entity. One post reads: 'The alarming riots in L.A. which have put hundreds of law enforcement officers at risk, are precisely why the Big Beautiful Bill is so important.'
Another states: 'While rioters wave foreign flags and burn ours, our officers will always raise the stars and stripes with pride.' Approving references to Trump's policies are intercut with remarks about 'lies' from 'the mainstream media and sanctuary politicians'.
Questions will naturally be asked about whether this constitutes an appropriate hashtag partner for football's apolitical governing body.
Infantino was asked this week about the presence of immigration agencies at Fifa's launch party. His answer was characteristically vague, focusing instead on security issues.
But there is concern on that front in Miami, fuelled by the chaos of the Copa América final between Argentina and Colombia at the same venue last year, which led to arrests, barriers rushed and a one-hour kick-off delay.
The Hard Rock has warned of 'multiple security and ticket check points', and the Miami Herald has unearthed a police video used as a training tool for the tournament in which a sergeant is heard saying: 'If things go south, we get prepared, we get ready. For civil unrest and unruly fans, this will get us ready for those events.'
And Fifa is dipping its toe into some overheated waters here. Only this week the Trump administration explicitly instructed anything up to half a million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came legally to the United States under a Biden-era programme to 'leave immediately' if they have yet to make the step from 'parole' to full status.
The state of heightened security has affected Fifa's party. On Wednesday a luxury pleasure flotilla chartered by the TV station Telemundo and containing Fifa officials and the Miami-Dade mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, was boarded by CBP officials in Biscayne Bay off the Miami coast. The event, staged to celebrate the approach of the World Cup, was abruptly cancelled.
Officials later stated the raid was a routine inspection that uncovered some safety violations. But the mayor has since described the incident as 'deeply troubling' and told local media: 'Ensuring that all community members feel safe and included is crucial to maintaining our county's reputation as a welcoming destination for both residents and visitors.'
Saturday's opening game (8pm EST, 1am BST on Sunday in the UK) is now a source of multiple migraines for Infantino. Trump will be absent, required instead to oversee his own Grand Military Parade in Washington.
While this is no doubt a bone-deep personal disappointment for Infantino, it will at least spare him the embarrassment of marrying up his headline act's political statements with the capricious and easily offended commander-in-chief in the seat next to him.
The game also coincides with a day of nationwide anti-Trump protests. Styled as the No Kings movement, a warning against the exercise of extreme executive power in the first year of Trump's second term, the protests will elide naturally with unrest over the actions of Ice and CBP.
The wider Miami area will stage at least 10 No Kings events, including one half an hour's drive from Infantino's coronational seat at the Hard Rock Stadium, although it is unlikely Republican Miami-Dade will see anything like the scale of unrest in Los Angeles.
As one Aventura man put it on Thursday morning: 'This is Florida. We don't truck with that shit here.' This appears to be the politically sanctioned position.
The state governor, Ron DeSantis, speaking on the Rubin Report this week, took the extraordinary step of encouraging members of the public who feel threatened by protests on Club World Cup matchday one to drive through the crowds, an apparent extension of Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law.
As DeSantis put it: 'If you drive off and you hit one of these people, that's their fault for impinging on you.' The tagline for the opening night of Fifa's US mission is A New Era Begins.
As things stand that new era will kick off against a rolling background of spot-check fear, off-message headline acts and an opening game shadowed by the prospect of governor-approved assault with a motor vehicle a few miles down the road.
Over to you, Gianni.
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