Why fans should brace for a Maga World Cup' next year

Gianni Infantino is having his dignity’ questioned, explains chief football writer Miguel Delaney, as the Fifa president cosies up to Donald Trump ahead of the 2026 tournament

- Miguel Delaney

In the days after Fifa president Gianni Infantino returned from Donald Trump’s inauguration, sources who met with him couldn’t help but notice something. They could have sworn Infantino was starting to talk like Trump, as he constantly went on about “the biggest deals”. This might well have been a trick of the mind but parallels have been drawn with how some wannabe tech moguls start behaving like Elon Musk after two days visiting Tesla.

It doesn’t seem too much of a stretch given how Infantino nodded along and said yes as Trump absurdly spoke of how an unprecedented trade war between World Cup 2026 co-hosts USA, Canada and Mexico is “gonna make it more exciting”.

“Tension is a good thing,” the US president added, as if this was managers exchanging barbs in press conferences.

Those within Fifa are keen to stress that Infantino nodding along and saying yes as Trump spoke wasn’t actually an endorsement of his views, but must be put in the context of being a guest at the White House.

These are certainly strange times for the World Cup, as European qualifying starts this weekend, just as these are strange times for the world. A first-ever tournament across three countries, now involving a bloated 48 teams, is quite a moment for the premier of the main host nation to provoke trade tensions with his ostensible partners. The soccer federations have meanwhile been isolated from the preparation as the president of Fifa so conspicuously aligns himself with Trump instead. Football executives were struggling to recall a situation comparable to Infantino attending Trump’s inauguration.

Fifa’s most strident critics are already talking of how the body are now facilitating “the Maga World Cup”. One senior source is of the opinion that Trump will use it to promote his political ideology and that source even labelled it as sportswashing.