Donald Trump stunt proves FIFA is happy to play politics when it suits

Timothy Weah sounded like someone who felt he had been ambushed.
'It was all a surprise to me, honestly,' the United States national-team player told reporters of his trip to the White House, where he was part of a delegation from his Italian club Juventus standing awkwardly in the Oval Office as President Donald Trump answered media questions about a possible U.S. attack on Iran and riffed about transgender women in sport.
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'They told us that we have to go and I had no choice but to go,' Weah said. 'It was a bit weird. When he started talking about the politics with Iran and everything, it's kind of, like… I just want to play football, man.'
Weah looked like he wished he could be somewhere — anywhere — else. Likewise, his Juventus and U.S. team-mate Weston McKennie, who described Trump as 'ignorant' for his response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
With the exception of John Elkann, chief executive of the Turin-based club's majority shareholder Exor, introduced by Trump as a 'fantastic business person' and 'a friend of mine', the whole delegation looked uncomfortable — not least when the president pointedly asked them, 'Could a woman make your team, fellas?'
It fell to Juventus general manager Damien Comolli to break the awkward silence, answering, 'We have a very good women's team.'
'See? They're very diplomatic,' Trump said.
Among the inevitable media questions about Iran, Israel and U.S. border controls, there was one inquiry about the ongoing Club World Cup being played in the States — or specifically about how the tournament, and next year's World Cup, might be affected by the travel ban imposed on citizens of 19 countries, which, as The New York Times revealed this week, could be extended to a further 36.
At this point, Trump turned to his other 'great friend', FIFA president Gianni Infantino. 'It's not a concern,' Infantino said of the travel ban, adding that the 'learnings' from the Club World Cup would apply to the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
'I don't think he (Infantino) is too worried about the travel ban,' Trump said. 'He doesn't know what the travel ban is, I don't think. Gianni, tell me what the travel ban is. He doesn't know what it is. He's largely sold out.'
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Infantino, as is his way, rocked his head back and laughed before reverting to nodding-dog mode when the agenda returned to more serious matters.
To be clear, when Trump said, 'He's largely sold out', he appeared to be talking about the number of tickets that have been purchased for Club World Cup matches. But… well, some of Infantino's growing army of critics might be tempted to say it works both ways.
During his campaign to win the FIFA presidency in 2016, Infantino visited Iran's capital Tehran, where he was asked how the diplomatic rift between that country and Saudi Arabia might impact the sport. 'It's very clear that politics should stay out of football and football should stay out of politics,' he said at a news conference.
There was a similar response at Audi Field, Washington, on Wednesday night when The Athletic asked Juventus coach Igor Tudor how it had felt to be standing behind the desk at the Oval Office on a matchday as the U.S. president discussed affairs in Iran and Israel. The FIFA moderator of the news conference interjected, saying Tudor would only answer questions relating to Juventus' 5-0 win over Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates, and to the Club World Cup more generally.
Two days previously, when The Athletic asked FIFA whether the decision to drop anti-discrimination messaging from Club World Cup venues was related to the current political climate in the U.S., it pointed to its statutes, which say 'FIFA remain neutral in matters of politics'.
Then, on Wednesday, FIFA did display anti-racism slogans at tournament games, but only as a one-off to mark International Day for Countering Hate Speech. If it all sounds very messy, that's because it is.
Keeping politics out of the game sounds like an entirely reasonable position for world football's governing body to take. But it is also the most disingenuous stance imaginable when the same coach and his players had been ushered into the Oval Office a few hours before that game and when the FIFA president has been accused by UEFA, European football's governing body, of prioritising 'private political interests' above the interests of the sport.
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Infantino denies that accusation, citing the importance of working closely with the U.S. leadership for the good of the Club World Cup and next year's World Cup.
But the 'bromance' with Trump appears to mark the continuation of a theme.
Infantino was similarly friendly with President Vladimir Putin before, during and after the 2018 World Cup in Russia, accepting an 'order of friendship' medal from him in 2019 and telling the world, 'This is a new image of Russia that we now have' — a statement that did not age well.
Then there was the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where Infantino was accused by human-rights campaign groups of becoming too close to the host nation's leaders and of trivialising the conditions faced by migrant workers there — as explored in depth by The Athletic's Simon Hughes — by comparing them to his own experiences as the son of Italian immigrants in Switzerland in the 1970s and 1980s.
Seven European football associations, including England, Germany and the Netherlands, were warned by FIFA that their teams would face sanctions if their captains wore 'OneLove' armbands promoting an anti-discrimination campaign featuring a rainbow logo during games at that tournament.
FIFA deemed the messaging to be 'political', which in itself seemed like a political stance to take in Qatar, given that it had only months earlier flown the rainbow flag at its headquarters in Zurich in support of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Iranian fans in Qatar were detained for wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan 'Women, Life, Freedom' or the name of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died in police custody in Tehran earlier that year after being arrested for not wearing her hijab in accordance with government standards. It is beyond question that the messaging on these T-shirts was political. But so, too, were the actions of the authorities in Qatar in detaining those who wore them.
The 2034 men's World Cup will be staged by Saudi Arabia, another FIFA decision that has led to severe criticism from human rights campaign groups. FIFA has also agreed vast sponsorship deals with Aramco, the Saudi state-owned petroleum and gas company, and the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund that is also the majority owner of Newcastle United. Already, Infantino's relationship with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is a subject of growing consternation within the game.
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As with Russia in 2018, as with Qatar in 2022, the financial upside of these commercial deals is widely trumpeted. The political cost is never disclosed.
It is entirely to be expected that staging major tournaments — whether in Russia, Qatar, the United States, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else — should require FIFA and its president to work closely with the leadership of the host nation. But increasingly, it feels as if football is being driven by geopolitical interests and the diplomatic relationships behind them.
Football's authorities are happy to play politics when it suits them and then, at the drop of a hat, or the appearance of an unfriendly slogan or an inquisitive journalist, to put up barriers saying, 'No politics, please.'
But at a global level, the game could hardly be more compromised politically than it has become, hosting men's World Cups in Russia and Qatar, and opting to do so in Saudi Arabia in 2034. And if anyone was naive enough to imagine the U.S.-led tournament in 2026 would be free of such political baggage, then surely the increasingly public proximity of the Trump-Infantino relationship has dispelled those illusions.
Even 24 hours later, the footage from the Oval Office on Wednesday makes for uncomfortable viewing.
For sports teams to be guests at the White House is hardly a new phenomenon, but to expect those Juventus players and officials to stand there in silence as Trump talks about the threat of war — or perhaps to be expected to nod obediently and then laugh along at other moments, like Infantino unfailingly does — was extraordinary.
It would be wonderful to imagine a world in which sport and politics were kept apart. But this is an era when we have seen football clubs bought by politicians, oligarchs, sheikhs and sovereign wealth funds. When the game's leaders are in thrall to world leaders, when so many big decisions about its future seem to have geopolitical considerations at their heart, the opposite is true.
Football? To use Trump's phrase, it's largely sold out.

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