Fifa World Cup 2026: Is this the most exclusionary tournament in history?

“Fifa World Cup 2026: Is this the most exclusionary tournament in history? Submitted by Azad Essa on Tue, 05/19/2026 - 23:31 Eye-watering costs, visa restrictions and long travel distances mean this World Cup edition may not 'unite the world' the way Fifa claims A view of signage ahead of the 2026 World Cup at New York New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on 19 May 2026 (Dustin Satloff/AFP) Off The Fifa World Cup represents the pinnacle of the world’s most popular game. For decades, the tournament has been marketed as a month-long spectacle in which borders dissolve and billions of people gather - be it in front of the television set, or a cafe, pub, or at the stadium itself - to witness who will lift its most coveted prize. And even though the World Cup has almost always been a playground for the rich and famous, this year's tournament - running from 11 June to 19 July 2026 in the United States, Canada, and Mexico - feels a little different. The tournament - with three countries hosting, 48 countries competing, and promised to be the biggest the world has ever known - continues to be overshadowed by eye-watering ticket prices, tightening border controls, travel restrictions, and growing authoritarianism in the US. The uncertainty around travel and ticketing costs, combined with a volatile domestic environment, has left fans and followers feeling somewhat disheartened. High costs, long distances Tickets for the World Cup have always been a prized commodity. Fans have often saved up for years ahead of a tournament and wait for Fifa, football's world governing body, to open digital windows to enter ticket lotteries for a shot at a World Cup ticket. But even before fans reach the point of buying tickets, Fifa's decision to stage the event across three vast countries, with long distances between them, means the tournament has felt fragmented from the outset. There is neither a unified cultural identity nor a geographic specificity that would make the tournament feel as cohesive as it did when South Africa, Brazil or Qatar hosted. Even then, football is football, and fans will traverse the earth to watch their beloved teams. But travelling to the US for many fans will mean long and expensive transatlantic flights, which could spike further given the jet fuel shortages that could be triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran. Once in the US, travelling to and from venues across the country would, in most cases, require additional plane or train tickets, as well as accommodation. Some fans may even need to travel between the US, Mexico and Canada if they want to see a variety of matches and teams, which would compound costs even further. That doesn't mean there isn't demand for the tournament. In the first round of sales in late 2025, Fifa received around 20 million ticket requests . By January 2026, Fifa reported having received 500 million ticket requests. Outside the host countries, the highest number of applications came from fans in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, England, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. The gap between the cheapest ticket and the finals ticket over the years But whereas prior World Cups hosted in South Africa, Brazil, Russia, and Qatar offered subsidised ticket rates for local residents, there has been no federal equivalent for this year's event. Tickets for the games in the US have been the most expensive, but prices in Canada and Mexico are not been far behind. CNN reported that prices for the tournament opener in Mexico during the second round of sales in April 2026 ranged from $3,000 to $10,000. And despite some reductions over the past several weeks due to a drop in demand and resale-market volatility , ticket prices have put the tournament beyond the reach of even its most loyal neighbourhood supporters. "I know dozens of people who have travelled to World Cups around the world, or even to the Olympics in Paris, but very few people I know have bought tickets for this one," Jennifer Muller, a board member of Cloud 9 , the supporters group for the New York-New Jersey-based Gotham Football Club, told Middle East Eye. Muller's experience isn't unique. Fans across the US have expressed disappointment over the prices. In Atlanta, a local sports store owner told 285South that fans were buying tickets that cost as much as a monthly mortgage payment. In December 2025, Fifa introduced a new batch of entry-tier tickets for fans of all national teams participating in the tournament, priced at $60, but observers described the measure as little more than a gimmick, given that it only amounted to a few hundred tickets per game. Likewise, in response to mounting criticism over questions about affordability and access, New York City announced just this week that it would reserve 1,000 tickets for residents at $50 each through a lottery system. The MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, which has a capacity of 82,500, will host eight matches over the month, including the final on 19 July 2026. This means 125 seats, around 0.15 percent of an 82,500-seat stadium, will be allocated at the special price per game, excluding the final. Instead of providing a measure of relief, the gesture only appeared to underscore the absurd price gouging. Ticket prices between the 2022 and the 2026 World Cup Transport travails But the match tickets are only the start. After securing a ticket, you need to get to the stadiums. In Mexico and Canada, transport to the stadiums hosting the games is likely to be more straightforward. In the US, fans have been warned they could be spending hundreds of dollars just to get to and from city centres and stadiums. The Associated Press reported that train fares from New York to the stadium have jumped 12 times the regular cost. "I live 12 miles from the MetLife Stadium. Even if tickets fell into my lap, I have no idea how I would get to the stadium without spending over $100 for a 12-mile trip," Muller said. But there have been other disappointments. Fan parks, hugely popular around the world during the tournament and usually free, were turned into ticketed events in several US cities. After criticism, some cities, such as New York City, dropped the entry fee. Some cities will continue to offer "premium" sections at fan parks for around $200-$300 per person. The combination of exorbitant costs, vast travel distances, and a lack of a distinct identity has left the tournament feeling little more than a giant profit-making machine. "Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa, talks all the time about how this World Cup will net 11 billion dollars for his organisation. I wouldn't be surprised if, actually, it went more than $11bn ," Jules Boykoff, author of Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine , told MEE. "That is more money than any sporting event in the history of the world," he added. Travel restrictions For millions of fans across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, travelling to North America isn’t just expensive, it is largely out of reach. Flights and accommodation costs are prohibitively high, and then there is the added hurdle of visas. The US maintains one of the strictest visa regimes in the world. Visitors from the Global South are expected to disclose extensive financial records, employment histories, and next-of-kin, and are required to attend in-person interviews and pay extortionate fees just for the chance to apply. There is now also an added layer of social media vetting of applicants for non-immigrant visas, purportedly to screen for threats to national security. But many accuse the government of using it as a vehicle to filter out those with political views that the Trump administration disagrees with. While Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 both created special entry systems for ticket holders, the US created new hurdles for fans around the world, especially those from poorer countries. In December 2025, Trump placed 39 nations, including four countries participating in the tournament, on a travel ban. Haiti and Iran were placed on a full travel ban, while Senegal and the Ivory Coast were placed on a partial travel ban. Amid security concerns linked to the US-Israel-led war on Iran, Tehran requested its fixtures be moved to Mexico. This request was denied. The US government also imposed a visa bond on travellers from 50 countries. These require visitors to pay a deposit of $5,000 to $15,000 to the State Department before obtaining a US visa. In mid-May, Washington exempted ticket-holders from countries participating in the tournament from having to pay the bond. This applies to Algeria, Cape Verde, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Tunisia. Reuters reported that qualifying team members and staff could also have their bonds waived. "We remain committed to strengthening US national security priorities while facilitating legitimate travel for the ​upcoming World Cup tournament," Mora Namdar, an official in the State Department's ​consular affairs division, told Reuters. According to Cheikh Tham, a Senegalese community organiser in Atlanta, Georgia, several members of the Senegalese Football Federation, as well as the fan entourage that usually follows the reigning, albeit disputed , African champions around the globe, were not given visas to travel to the US. This has meant that whereas large swathes of local supporters have been priced out, others have effectively been blocked from attending altogether. "So now we're trying to work with the embassy to see how to help us get the ticket cheaper, so at least we can get the flights and go to support the team," Tham from the Senegalese Community for Aid and Development, told MEE. The restrictions and double standards, activists say, haven't just gone unopposed by Fifa, the world body has, in effect, reinforced them. Even a FIFA competition that offers "a once-in-a-lifetime FIFA World Cup 2026 Final experience", with tickets and accommodation, excludes most of the globe. Only legal residents from 16 countries can enter that competition. Even Mexicans, whose country is a tournament host, aren't eligible to apply. Boykoff said the travel restrictions imposed on World Cup visitors "slices mightily against the FIFA slogan that 'football unites the world'." "This form of exclusion threatens to suck much of the joy from the tournament, given that visiting football fans bring zest and passion to the festivities. "These exclusionary practices may well put a serious damper on the fun," Boykoff added. Reduction of tourism in the US The World Cup aside, the challenges and negative image associated with travel to the US have already taken a toll on tourism numbers. Earlier in May, a congressional briefing acknowledged that the Trump administration's "focus on immigration enforcement and restriction has led to concerns about a dampening effect on travel to the United States, including for tourism". In 2025, international visitor numbers to the US fell by around six percent. The chilling effect of ICE Observers have long argued that large sporting events enable host nations to use the tournament to advance their political, economic, and image-building goals. Benito Mussolini used the 1934 World Cup in Italy as a vehicle to legitimise fascism, as did Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. More recently, India's Hindu right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2023 to whitewash violence against Muslims and other minorities. Previous Fifa World Cup tournaments in Brazil (2014) and South Africa (2010) were accompanied by incidents of urban displacement, forced evictions, securitisation, and the sanitisation of public space to accommodate tourists and corporate sponsors. The 2022 World Cup in Qatar, too, was built on the backs of exploitative migrant labour practices despite the tournament's glossy facade. This phenomenon, known as sportswashing, is, as scholars like Boykoff argue, usually used to describe the actions of states outside the Global North. "That's not to say that massive human rights problems don't occur in Russia or Qatar. They're well documented, so that's for real, but oftentimes, people do turn a blind eye to the human rights violations in the United States, or they don't call them human rights violations," Boykoff added. But sportswashing is precisely the logic that the Trump administration is likely to draw upon in its approach to the tournament. "And quite honestly, the World Cup, if it has any positive effects, it could open a lot of people's eyes to the double standard that we're talking about here, and start looking at the United States and other so-called democracies with a more critical lens that also takes their human rights problems into consideration," Boykoff said. World Cup 2026: US gives no assurances immigration agents won’t raid stadiums Read More » Under Trump, the US has increasingly come to embody a broader climate of exclusion and hostility towards people of colour. This has precipitated violent immigration raids and detentions in cities across the US, as Trump marches towards his promise to implement mass deportations. "We are seeing masked, armed federal officials deployed in ways that are terrorising immigrant communities across the country, not just in host cities connected to the World Cup," Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) human rights programme, told MEE. Thus far, the US government has refused to provide guarantees that non-US citizens will be safe from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids at stadiums. "We're having a continuous conversation with this," he responded. "The one thing [is], I've known the president for 25 years. The president does not rule out anything that will help make American citizens safer," Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force on the Fifa World Cup 2026, told the press in December 2025. At a Fifa Club World Cup game in New Jersey in July 2025, a father of two young children was arrested by ICE. The atmosphere in the US has become so tense that activists have warned that even valid visa holders may still face detention, invasive questioning, or aggressive immigration enforcement upon entering the US. In late April, the ACLU put out a travel advisory warning foreigners of the risks of visiting the US - including the possibility of arbitrary detention and deportation; invasive social media screening and racial profiling; freedom of speech suppression; surveillance; and even risk of inhumane treatment or death in detention facilities. Dakwar said he believed it was the first time the ACLU had issued such a forceful travel advisory for a sporting event of this scale in modern history. "Over the past year, we have engaged with Fifa and raised these issues and concerns multiple times, particularly around abusive immigration enforcement," Dakwar said. "We alerted them to the deteriorating human rights situation under the Trump administration, including illegal and unconstitutional immigration practices where individuals were detained and deported without due process, [and] in some instances, attempts to deport even permanent legal residents in connection to their activism in support of Palestinian rights. "The abusive deployment of armed federal forces, including the National Guard, is, in my view, unlike anything we have seen in many decades. It affects not only migrants or asylum seekers, but also bystanders, people observing events, reporters, and even lawful residents," Dakwar added. Advocates like Dakwar are concerned, too, about what might happen to visitors who express their political views, including expressing support for Palestinian rights. During the World Cup in Qatar, supporters from across the Arab world transformed stadiums and public spaces into visible expressions of solidarity with Palestine. Human rights in the US However, activists and supporters are aware that such displays are unlikely to be tolerated in the same manner in the US. "We have not been able to get binding assurances from Fifa or the federal government that people attending the World Cup will not be subject to the same kinds of abusive or authoritarian practices, including deadly use of force, profiling, inhumane detention and summary deportation without due process. If this can happen to permanent legal residents and even citizens, then it can certainly happen to visitors coming into the country as well," Dakwar said. Union workers hold signs as they rally outside of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on 18 May 2026 (Justin Sullivan/AFP) While the ACLU is concerned about how visitors may be treated, it is also worried about the rights of people already in the US, many of whom are protesting against Trump's policies. Just this week, workers at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, California, where several World Cup matches are scheduled to take place, demanded that ICE play no role at the tournament. Workers have expressed concern that Fifa would be sharing their information and data with ICE and foreign countries’ intelligence agencies. "We cannot celebrate the World Cup while workers, tourists, immigrant families, and local communities are made to feel unsafe. Los Angeles should be a city of welcome - not fear,” Yolanda Fierro, a worker at the stadium and member of the Unite Here Local 11 trade union, said in a statement sent to MEE. Advocates and activists say they aren't calling for foreigners to stay away or boycott the tournament. "It is a call for precaution - for awareness of risks, for preparation, and for safety planning," Dakwar said. "More than anything, it is also a signal to Fifa that they need to take responsibility and use their leverage to ensure that this World Cup does not become a space where abusive practices and widespread human rights violations are normalised, and where people are exposed to surveillance, deportation, arrest, detention, or other violations," he added. At the end of the day, fans and activists alike are well aware that, notwithstanding the inequity, repression, and double standards, the "greatest show on earth" will go on. "I believe that we can both appreciate the action on the field and support the worker-athletes on the field, and critique Fifa for the way that it is basically turning the people's game into a game for plutocrats," Boykoff said. World Cup 2026 Is Fifa World Cup 2026 the most exclusionary tournament in history? Explainers Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0

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