The FIFA World Cup is held every four years. It’s the world’s biggest sporting event and a financial boon to the country(s) chosen by the hopelessly corrupt FIFA brass to host. Usually it’s all in one country but this year it’s being split between the U.S. (11 cities), Mexico (3 cities) and Canada (2 cities) and it looks like there are going to be a LOT of empty seats, and also hotel rooms in the U.S. Cities.
The U.S. has hosted the event before. Soccer legend Pele was the driving force to making that happen. While the sport is hugely popular around the world in the U.S. support, at least for the men’s team has been tepid. The U.S. Women’s team has had far more success on the international stage than the men, and when they hosted the Women’s World Cup back in 1999 it was to packed venues (yes, major sporting venues and not smaller college stadiums) and the whole thing, including the final against China was epic. The thing is the women work hard to cultivate a fan base and develop talent in a way the men never have. Unlike the men who whine about football (the American version) and other professional sports being so popular the women just go about overcoming all that.
Worse, when the U.S. Men’s team plays matches against other countries here in the U.S. the fans are mostly dressed in the colors of our opponents and cheer for them! Still, during his first term when FIFA was selecting a host for 2026 Trump wanted it to be us. Even he knew he’d have to rope in some other countries (Mexico in particular) and toss some of the matches their way to make the whole thing viable. But the bid was a clusterf**k from the start, beginning with FIFA scrapping the rule it adopted in 2002 to have only one nation host. Given their corruption and Trump’s it was a partnership formed in the sleaziest part of hell to be sure.
So, with the tournament running from June 11 to July 19 the 2026 World Cup will take place as we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday. Embarrassingly, just as in 1994 our nation’s capitol will NOT host the final match. That honor goes to East Rutherford New Jersey’s MetLife stadium. FexEx Field in DC is plenty large enough but in nowhere near the kind of shape (the field, the facilities or the amenities as in sky boxes for the bigwigs) to meet FIFA standards.
Well, you can read the link above for more details on dates and logistics/venues. What I want to talk about are travel concerns and all the cancelled blocks of hotel rooms! FIFA is claiming some five million tickets have been sold but the U.S. has a lot of foreigners worried about coming here to use them. For me a better indicator of interest (or lack thereof) are all the hotel rooms going unbooked. The New York Post, a Trump-centric outlet tries in a couple of spots to to put a happy face on things (the ticket sales) but mostly offers a grim assessment:
Foreign soccer fans are boycotting the 2026 World Cup in droves, threatening to blunt the economic boost US hotels and host cities were counting on, an industry report warned on Monday.
Nearly 80% of hotel operators in nine of the 11 American host cities said reservations are running well behind early projections: even though more than 5 million tickets have already been sold, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s US Hotel Outlook Report.
FIFA canceled or released about 70% of its massive room blocks, flooding the market and triggering cancellations of up to 95% of contracted inventory in some cities.
That folks was the lede – For our MAGA lurkers that means how they opened their article. Yes, they try to spin some positive numbers in a handful of cities but to me at least by the time I was done with the article it was clear not even Trump (and Jared) could browbeat them into writing a fluff piece. No, they told the truth on Trump and FIFA and it’s not pretty:
Visa delays, concerns about how they would be treated by immigration officials, soaring airfares, a strong US dollar, and geopolitical tensions have kept international travelers home, the AHLA said.
Those visitors were projected to spend an average of $5,048 each — 1.7 times more than typical overseas tourists — with one-third planning multi-city stays longer than two weeks.
“Indicators suggest the anticipated economic lift may fall short of expectations. Despite more than five million tickets sold, this demand has not translated into strong hotel bookings,” the report said. “Domestic travelers are outpacing international travelers — an imbalance that threatens the broader economic impact the World Cup was expected to generate.”
It’s a sobering article, especially if you live in one of the cities hosting matches and were hoping for some economic benefit. I urge you to read the whole thing. It touches on concerns about foreign visitors have about getting into the U.S., and even acknowledges our standing in the world has negatively impacted the desire of those who might have come for the World Cup to actually do so. I think of those five million tickets sold and wonder how many were purchased before the Iran war started. Or Trump’s tariffs had really taken hold and damaged the overall world economy. Yep, the rest of the world doesn’t like us much anymore.
What the Post’s article doesn’t touch on but I will is another factor. ICE and immigration enforcement. You think the abuses are only broadcast/written about by U.S. outlets? The indiscriminate rounding up of people is major news around the world. Even if governments aren’t officially warning their citizens I’d be willing to bet many are putting out word that maybe, even if tickets had already been purchased it might be better to just stay home and watch on TV. MUCH safer. And no worries about what might happen if some ICE/DHS goon arrests them and they have to shell out money for lawyers!
This has the potential to be fiasco. I keep thinking of how soccer player try to draw fouls by pretending they got mauled by a competitor, writhing around on the ground doing championship wrestling tacky-playacting. Then, when they realized the ref wasn’t buying their bullshit they get up and sheepishly trot away. I’ve seen reels of this nonsense and it’s small wonder that Americans who are quite familiar with contact sports have contempt for pro soccer for tolerating this crap. Yep, flopping is part of the game. Now it looks like their marquee event could be the biggest flop in the sport’s history. Frankly I would care except our women’s players have done so much to advance the sport here. They too will be tarnished by all this.
In the end it looks like soccer will succumb to ETTD Syndrome. Not that Trump will care. He got his “Peace Prize” and surely a major payoff already! I can’t wait to see how Trump tries to explain away all the empty seats at so many U.S. venues hosting matches.
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