Category: Politics

Final whistle. After six weeks, that’s a wrap on our World Cup coverage and live analysis — tracking not the goals and games, but the power plays, political battles and geopolitical stakes shaping the tournament. Thanks for following along.

​Politics

Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup may not be a 2034 World Cup at all. The tournament is unlikely to be played in the summer — and the calendar math could push it into 2035.

FIFA has, of course, switched the World Cup to winter before to avoid playing games in intense summer heat, with Qatar’s 2022 tournament the first to ever break from seasonal tradition. But that Gulf precedent won’t carry to Saudi neatly. In 2034, Ramadan is slated to fall around Nov. 12 through Dec. 12 — squarely in the late-year window that Qatar used.

In Muslim countries, Ramadan does far more than shuffle mealtimes and deepen prayer. The rhythm of public life bends completely, with social, civic and work schedules pushed later into a day defined by the night. A Saudi World Cup during Ramadan would solve one problem only by creating another.

Alternative slots in 2034 are not much more forgiving. January and February would run into Salt Lake City’s Winter Olympics, splitting audience attention, sponsor dollars and media oxygen. Then around early March comes Hajj, a massive logistical undertaking that brings roughly 2 million pilgrims from across the world to Saudi for a highly coordinated week of rituals. Unlike a typical event on the global calendar, Hajj cannot simply be moved — its timing is set by the Islamic lunar calendar. Anything after that starts to nudge the tournament out of the cooler season that made summer untenable in the first place.

All of this primes an option that otherwise sounds absurd: early 2035. FIFA has not indicated that it is considering such a move, but the calendar constraints make it a scenario that cannot be easily dismissed.

The cleanest stretch looks to be between the Christmas-New Year’s time frame, which FIFA is sure to avoid, and Hajj, expected that year in mid-February. That leaves a plausible, though still narrow, six to seven weeks to stage a tournament across Saudi’s 15 proposed stadiums, possibly with 64 teams. That would be a tighter squeeze than this year’s 48 teams at 16 stadiums over five and some weeks.

The scheduling bind sharpens a test of hierarchy in the global calendar: which dates become constraints and which become variables.

The likelihood of another winter World Cup is already reviving 2022 resentment, especially in Europe, where it will interrupt club seasons. And that prospect feeds into a larger unease over Saudi as host, from human rights concerns that hang over the kingdom to the unusual circumstances surrounding its selection.

FIFA has spent years trying to present Qatar, and now Saudi Arabia, as proof that world football’s governing body is becoming less parochial and more global. That framing also serves a commercial purpose, courting football audiences and markets beyond FIFA’s traditional centers of power. A World Cup competing with the host country’s religious observances would put all of that under obvious strain. Even Muslims with no affection for the Saudi state, including those well beyond the Gulf, are likely to view any FIFA conflict with Ramadan or Hajj as an overstep.

Because the Islamic calendar is lunar, Ramadan and Hajj drift roughly ten days earlier each year, constantly shifting their collision points with global sports seasons. Hajj is a Saudi-specific factor, but Ramadan reaches across the Muslim world, a growing presence among host countries: Qatar in 2022, Morocco as part of 2030, Saudi Arabia in 2034. If that sequence hints at FIFA’s future, these calendar conflicts foreshadow a recurring tension.

This year’s North American tournament has also revived a broader question: whether the summer months can remain the World Cup’s permanent home as temperatures rise. That could eventually force countries outside the Gulf to begin reconsidering their own seasonal blueprint, making Saudi 2034 less an anomaly and more a preview of what’s to come.

Last October, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said that the soccer world should be more open-minded about tournament timing — suggesting that a game spread across climates and continents cannot expect to remain tied to the traditional June-July template.

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Before the final whistle blows on the 2026 World Cup, a familiar tension is already bubbling ahead of its next two installments.

Morocco, which will co-host the 2030 World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal, criminalizes same-sex sexual activity. And in Saudi Arabia, host of the 2034 tournament, homosexuality is understood to be illegal under Islamic law.

Both countries submitted plans to address the potential human rights risks associated with hosting the tournament as part of their bids, but human rights advocates say the nations must guarantee that queer fans are not prosecuted under those laws. And they say FIFA, which has an ostensible commitment to fighting discrimination in football, should play a role in securing that.

“It doesn’t mean that FIFA is the world police and somehow has the power to tell countries what to do with their laws,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s head of labor rights and sports. “But it can certainly engage and use its leverage to put in place measures that would be protective of that.”

The debate over what role FIFA should play in promoting human rights, and how far it should go to do so, is familiar to most fans of international soccer.

FIFA drew criticism from international spectators when it announced ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar that it would deliver a yellow card to team captains who donned the multi-colored “OneLove armband,” while the Qatari Emir said that all would be welcome so long as they respect the country’s culture.

Critics also drew attention to Russian laws prohibiting so-called gay propaganda ahead of the 2018 contest.

Morocco’s human rights strategy document notes that its independent human rights committee and the Moroccan Football Federation would “encourage both the parliament and the government to ratify key international conventions,” broadly referring to widely understood human rights standards, though the document did not explicitly mention discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Saudi Arabia’s proposal similarly makes no explicit mention of addressing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but asserts that the federation would “continuously verify that our legislations and practices align with our commitments to various international agreements pertaining to anti-discrimination and implement any required enhancements.” The nation’s tourism ministry says on its website that it welcomes all people, but it asks visitors to “respect our culture and traditions and follow our laws as they would when visiting any other country in the world.”

“Like other governments around the world, visitors are not required to disclose their personal information and we will respect visitors’ right to privacy,” its tourism FAQs site continues.

The FIFA Congress, made up of its member federations, approved both uncontested bids. FIFA and the Saudi and Moroccan embassies in Washington, D.C., did not respond to requests for comment.

Cockburn, whose organization authored a 2022 report slamming both the Moroccan and Saudi human rights strategies, said FIFA must go to greater lengths to guarantee that queer fans are protected while attending the games. That’s on top of the slew of concerns directed specifically at Saudi Arabia over workers’ rights and a lack of a minimum wage, contained in its report.

Countries regularly guarantee bits of policy to FIFA during negotiations to host World Cups, including special tax arrangements and altered visa protocols.

“There needs to be a bit more of an upfront, honest, grown up conversation about this, so that everyone’s clear, that it’s not fudged and that fans are not left guessing about what the situation is and how to look after themselves,” Cockburn said.

The arrival of the world’s most watched sporting event in those two nations can contribute to “a fair degree of, sort of, cynicism or general, sort of, distrust” among some LGBT-rights advocacy groups that FIFA sometimes doesn’t take this issue on in a systematic way that we would all like to see, said executive director of FIFA’s anti-discrimination partner Fare network Piara Powar.

“They just seem very kind of cautious around it and sadly it’s just not really taking us anywhere,” Jon Holmes, spokesperson for the group Football v Homophobia, said of FIFA.

If history is an indication, however, it’s possible that such concerns over human rights at the World Cup could fade once the international drama of the tournament begins. Such was the case in the U.S., where concerns over potential ICE raids, overwhelmed logistical systems and more — which did cause some to boycott the games — largely faded away amid a wildly successful tournament.

“We all kind of get lost in the event, and the narratives, and the storylines, and the athletes, and the beautiful game, and the cultures all coming together,” said Ryan Turcott, an associate professor at Gonzaga University who studies the politics of international sports. “But we lose track of the impact and the legacy when it comes to improving human rights.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misspelled Ryan Turcott’s name.​Politics

FIFA is expecting record-breaking revenue from the 2026 World Cup. But it’s still leaving a lot of money on the table — or more specifically, Chinese yuan.

Despite the expanded field in this year’s tournament, China’s men’s national team still failed to qualify. FIFA is now talking about expanding again to 64 teams in 2030, with the implicit hope of pulling in the Chinese team and its massive market of soccer-obsessed fans. The running joke in Chinese online soccer forums is that the men’s national team may still not qualify, says Hong Kong University Professor Xu Gouqi, who wrote a 2008 book on the role of sports in China.

“Chinese are not allowed to discuss many things in social media,” Xu noted in an interview. “But you can criticize the Chinese men’s football team with no consequences. It’s still a safe place.”

In fairness, the men’s team has not given its fans much reason for optimism over, well, the last century. The squad was an Asian powerhouse back in the 1930s, but has only qualified for the World Cup once, in 2002, when it failed to score a goal in losing all three of its games.

It’s not for lack of trying. Xi Jinping rode to power in China fresh off helming the wildly successful 2008 Beijing Olympics, and he’s keenly aware of how sports are intertwined with China’s sense of identity on the world stage, says Xu. One of Xi’s early promises: rebuilding the men’s national team to put it on a path to winning the World Cup by 2050, which is aligned with the Chinese Communist Party’s long-term blueprint for turning the country into a fully-modernized global superpower.

So far, it hasn’t been going great.

In the Asian qualifying tournament for the 2026 World Cup, the Chinese men’s team got pummeled 7-0 in one game against regional power Japan, while losing to Indonesia and tying Singapore (neither of which qualified, either). There are currently no Chinese men’s players playing in the top tiers of any of Europe’s professional leagues, a key metric of elite talent.

Experts detail a number of reasons for the failures, including corruption and the CCP’s top-down approach to athletics. At a fundamental level, it comes down to the lack of grassroots participation, says Rowan Simons, a U.K.-born, Beijing-based author of a book on soccer in China and founder of ClubFootball Beijing. “China still needs to concentrate on building the football culture that is shared by all nations playing in the World Cup finals. This is built on large numbers actually participating in the game,” Simons said in an e-mail. As it stands, registered youth soccer participation in China is still just a fraction of countries with far smaller populations, like England.

Xu agreed that while there is “a world class football fan base” in China, “you don’t get kids kicking the ball around” for fun the way you would see in say, South America or Europe. Parents view it as a waste of time “because the chance isn’t that great to succeed,” he said. Going to the best university is viewed as a more assured path.

But unlike Simons, Xu is optimistic that the Chinese men’s team can not just qualify but win the World Cup in the coming decades, which he says would bring out a whole new level of soccer obsession in the country of 1.4 billion — a FIFA marketer’s dream.

The answer, he says, lies in an approach China recently used to achieve Olympic success. Call it the Eileen Gu model.

Gu, the daughter of a first-generation Chinese immigrant mother, was born and raised in Northern California but competes for China in freestyle skiing. Her gold and silver medals at the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina earlier this year made her one of the most decorated freestyle skiers in Olympic history.

“We just simply bring the best and brightest from the kid level” to China from other countries, said Xu. That would represent “not just a major breakthrough in sports,” he argued, but “a major breakthrough in the idea of China.”

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The World Cup final wrapped up today in the portmandu place FIFA calls New York New Jersey.

The two states, which shared responsibilities to host eight matches and the final, did so through an uneasy alliance. There were tit-for-tats over which state should get first billing on signs outside the stadium. Their two governors – both Democrats – released dueling transportation plans.

Now, there is at least some evidence that if there’s a chance for them to work together again, New York may be reluctant to pair up with New Jersey – and if it does, officials may want to iron things out ahead of time.

The two border states are thrown together for major sporting events because New York City is a global tourist destination with plenty of hotels, nightlife and attractions. But it has no major sporting venue that can hold more than 50,000 fans. Neighboring New Jersey has MetLife Stadium, which seats 80,000.

The most public spat between the co-hosts came when New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she planned to charge $150 to carry fans to MetLife Stadium for matches, a price she later lowered to $98. She portrayed the high ticket price as an affordability-minded decision to avoid making her residents subsidize World Cup-goers who may have thousands of dollars sitting around to pay for their seats. She also castigated FIFA for refusing to chip in to help pay for transportation.

But New York Gov. Kathy Hochul went the opposite direction and helped lower the cost of a special bus to the matches to $20, viewing affordability in a different framework: how much it cost to get to the match.

At the time, one New York lawmaker, Assemblymember Robert Carroll, who represents Brooklyn, said on X that decisions like Sherrill’s “ensure that the next time New York City hosts the world, partnering with New Jersey won’t even be on the table.”

In June, Hochul tapped Carroll to help evaluate whether New York should bid for the 2042 Winter Olympics.

In an interview before the World Cup final, Carroll said he didn’t anticipate working with New Jersey for the Olympics, because events could take place in the city and in Lake Placid, which has already hosted two Winter Olympics.

Still, Carroll offered a more nuanced view than his social media post. He said the two states are linked for some events. But he remained critical of Sherrill and said things like the New Jersey Transit fares she imposed should be discussed if there is planning for a women’s World Cup, Super Bowl or other major event that involves both states.

“We should not try to harm one another,” Carroll said. “I think that it was very foolish for the governor to kind of put up a punitive tax towards New Yorkers or New York tourists going to World Cup games. And that was a poor decision and I think it shouldn’t happen in the future.”

Sherrill’s office referred a request for comment about Carroll’s comments to her previous remarks, but in a separate interview with POLITICO, the governor accused FIFA of trying not to pay its bills.

There is also at least some thinking in New York that the city will have a place to hold women’s World Cup matches in 2031, when the U.S. is expected to host the tournament.

A 25,000-seat professional soccer stadium, Etihad Park, is set to open next year in Queens.

New York City’s top economic development official, Jeanny Pak, said during a recent event at the French consulate that she’d like to look at hosting the women’s tournament at the new stadium.

“We’re really looking forward to that,” Pak said. “I think we’re really well poised to be the right place for it, so spread the word.”

​Politics

There was another World Cup victory on Sunday — for one of the nation’s largest transit agencies.

New Jersey Transit, which became infamous for disarray outside MetLife Stadium following the 2014 Super Bowl, carried soccer fans on its buses and trains there and back eight times since the World Cup began — without major incident.

For anyone in the New York City metropolitan area used to experiencing or hearing gripes about New Jersey’s transit system — which a former governor repeatedly promised to fix, even if it killed him — this was as surprising as almost anything that happened on the soccer pitch.

“The curse of Super Bowl 2014 is over,” New Jersey Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said Sunday evening during an interview inside the agency’s command center in the MetLife parking lot.

That Super Bowl featured extreme delays getting American football fans in and out of the New Jersey swamp where the stadium is located.

During this soccer tournament, the agency did end up carrying fewer passengers than expected, and the reasons for that remain up for debate. The agency has blamed the unexpected availability of parking spaces for fans at a nearby mall, as well as a cheaper bus service subsidized by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. Others blame New Jersey itself because Gov. Mikie Sherrill decided the state would charge soccer fans $98 to get to games.

Whatever the case, the system ran without any major meltdowns during matches despite some extreme weather that threatened to upend plans and affected other service.

Kolluri, who spoke with reporters while surrounded by some of his team that’s been working on the World Cup for several years, turned the interview into a pep talk for the squad. As he spoke, trains were coming and going from MetLife handling the remnants of World Cup fans and, back in New York City — where most people were heading — there was a Yankees game and Bon Jovi concert at Madison Square Garden. Still, a screen over his shoulder with video feeds from bus and train platforms across the region showed things working smoothly.

“The only reason why this worked is because of an extraordinary team who knew we were the underdog, and we were not going to let each other down,” Kolluri said.

The agency is still figuring out how much it cost to provide the special World Cup service, which involved extraordinary measures, including having 80 train cars available to whisk trains away from the stadium.

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