Donald Trump's travel ban undermines Gianni Infantino's World Cup vision

New York Times

2 days ago

Gianni Infantino could scarcely have been more emphatic when taking to the stage at the FIFA Congress in Asuncion, Paraguay, last month.
A meeting had been held with the White House Task Force in the preceding days, and assurances had seemingly been given that hardening immigration policies would not carry a price for the looming Club World Cup and the 2026 World Cup.
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'The world is welcome in America,' said Infantino, FIFA's long-serving president. 'Of course, the players, of course, everyone involved, all of us, but definitely also all the fans.'
Infantino might well have delivered that promise in good faith, but it has not taken long for that cheerfully optimistic assessment to appear misguided.
Any notion of the world being welcome must now carry an awkward asterisk.
A travel ban against 12 countries was signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday, halting movement into the United States for those deemed to be from high-risk territories. Citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be banned from entering the U.S. starting on Monday.
'Nothing will stop us from keeping America safe,' Trump said in a video announcing the executive order.
And least of all, it seems, a World Cup that the U.S. will share with neighbours Canada and Mexico next summer.
Although the new ruling will continue to permit entry to athletes, coaches and support staff who attend major sporting events — initially, only the World Cup and Olympics were specifically cited, but the White House clarified to The Athletic on Thursday that the Club World Cup and Concacaf's Gold Cup also fall into this category — fans will not be granted entry. Only 'immediate relatives' of those involved can hope to be exempt.
Trump has outlined his reasons, rooted in national security, but the policy shift has given FIFA and Infantino a headache.
Iran are already assured of a place at the 2026 finals, extending a run that has seen them travel to Brazil (2014), Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022). A fourth consecutive qualification was secured in March with a 2-2 draw against Uzbekistan.
Head coach Amir Ghalenoei and his players, including Inter Milan forward Mehdi Taremi, will be allowed entry into the United States, but the first indications are that their supporters will not.
Fans of Haiti, whose only previous World Cup experience came at the 1974 tournament in Germany, would also be subject to travel bans if their team was to continue its promising qualification campaign in Concacaf, as would Libya should they upset the odds and qualify as one of Africa's nine teams when that process is concluded in the autumn.
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Infantino now finds himself in a diplomatic pickle. A close relationship with Trump and his administration was supposed to have its benefits, smoothing the path towards the first of 104 games to be played in the U.S., Canada and Mexico a year and a week from now.
The bond was projected on multiple occasions, with Infantino even a guest at Trump's inauguration. He delayed his arrival at the aforementioned FIFA Congress as he wanted to be with Trump on his visits to Qatar and Saudi Arabia – a decision that caused members of the European delegation to leave the event early in protest.
But now Infantino is left confronting a policy that threatens to undermine the values of a World Cup he has so often championed.
'It's obvious when it comes to FIFA competitions, any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup,' Infantino told reporters in 2017, a year that had seen Trump ban travel from a number of predominantly Muslim countries during his first term in office.
The inference was that any country unwilling to open its doors to all supporters could be prevented from hosting a World Cup. Fans of all competing nations were welcome in Russia and then in Qatar, two countries without America's reputation for freedom and openness. Iran were among those backed by thousands of their supporters at both tournaments.
Infantino had been confident that the U.S. would be no different, but the guarantees he told the world that FIFA had last month have since disappeared.
Trump indicated there is time for this to change ahead of next summer with the list of banned nations 'subject to revision based on whether material improvements are made.' That the Club World Cup and Gold Cup, both starting this month, have now been included in the list of 'major' sporting events might also indicate a willingness to add flexibility to a hardline stance.
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It is nevertheless a problem that will take some spinning. Either Infantino knew the travel ban and its implications were in the post, but just did not want to let on in his public comments last month, or Trump's capricious nature has caught another supposed ally off guard. The latter feels more probable but still does not reflect well on Infantino after all the meetings, the gifts and photo opportunities of the last six months.
Infantino remains that most voraciously political animal who maintains politics have no place in football's harmonious little world. Yet Trump's gear shift on immigration is a reminder about how that vision remains as fanciful as ever.