Concacaf president Victor Montagliani tells Trump: Canada sovereignty ‘is never on the table'
The man responsible for soccer in North and Central America has said 'sovereignty is never on the table and is never a question' in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's comments about making Canada his country's '51st state'.
Victor Montagliani is the president of Concacaf — the confederation which oversees the sport in North and Central America and the Caribbean — and was previously the head of the Canada Soccer Association before rising to lead the regional body in 2016.
He was discussing the issue with The Athletic in a special podcast episode about the political backdrop to the two nations' partnership — alongside Mexico — as hosts of the World Cup in 2026.
'I think any president of Concacaf would probably have the same answer that I would when it comes to football — sovereignty is never on the table and never a question,' said Montagliani.
Laughing at the possibility his native country could ever be annexed by its neighbors, he added: 'My country's sovereignty is never in question and so I think it's pretty obvious.'
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On stage at a Los Angeles event called The Business of Soccer, held during the Nations League finals which featured all three World Cup hosts (as well as Panama), he added: 'The beauty about that ball is that it speaks no language. It has no religion. It has no political affiliation. It's a ball that connects players on the pitch, connects us in this room and it connects the whole world. And no president, no king, no queen can ever take that away.'
Afterwards Montagliani — a FIFA council vice-president — discussed dealing with a change in government in the U.S.. 'If you're a leader in football, it's part of our job to deal with any administration,' he said. 'We're going to have to deal with it moving forward. It's just a reality of putting on international global events. Whatever sort of challenges there are, you just deal with them accordingly.'
He is also keen to 'smooth the process' for fans hoping to gain visas for the 2026 World Cup amid the U.S. government's immigration crackdown. He was asked whether Gianni Infantino, the president of world soccer's governing body FIFA, may prove key to that aim because of his close relationship with President Trump.
'You have to have a relationship with the top levels of government when you're putting on the World Cup and I think once we get to that point of actually executing when visas are appropriate — which would be sometime next year — I think it'll go smoothly,' said Montagliani.
The Athletic highlighted last month that some waiting times for visas currently stretch beyond the start date of the World Cup. 'I don't think you can read into any policies now as it relates to the World Cup, because that's 16 months away,' said Montagliani.
Plenty of work is going on behind the scenes, he says, with initiatives from the most recent World Cup in Qatar — where tickets and visas were effectively combined — being looked into. That said, Montagliani acknowledged that nations' overarching immigration policies will need to be respected.
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'A lot of that work has already been done (and) started a couple of years ago,' he said. 'You start right away, whether it's Canada or the U.S. or Mexico. In terms of the process for a visa, how does that work? National security, all that. The reality is all three countries and not just the U.S. — I can speak for my country — we have requirements. I'm not sure Canada is going to just let them go because you have a World Cup ticket. But any way we can smooth the process, we're going to try to do that.'
The full interview with Montagliani features in a special episode of The Athletic FC podcast called 'A Divided World Cup: Trump and 2026', which focuses on the political backdrop to the recent Concacaf Nations League tournament and the challenges faced by the next World Cup's co-hosts. It also includes contributions from Canada head coach Jesse Marsch and goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair and the nation's World Cup 2026 organiser Peter Montopoli. Former MLS star and ex-Montreal Impact head coach Thierry Henry, USMNT's Tim Ream, former Mexico international Carlos Vela, Mexico's lead World Cup organiser Jurgen Mainka and U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson are some of the others who feature in the hour-long documentary.
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