Human rights organizations are sounding the alarm that this summer's World Cup will become a vehicle for the Trump administration to obscure its most controversial policies, warning that fans face genuine uncertainty about what happens if trouble breaks out during matches in the United States.
The Sport and Rights Alliance, an umbrella group that includes Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, is calling for urgent action to protect individual rights across the tournament, which kicks off in six weeks with the US co-hosting alongside Mexico and Canada.
Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch defined sportswashing as using a major sporting event to generate positive press coverage while simultaneously masking serious human rights violations. The term has traditionally been associated with authoritarian regimes, but Worden argues it applies squarely to the current US administration.
"This was supposed to be the first ever World Cup with a human rights framework: key protections for workers, fans, players and communities," Worden said. "Instead, the US administration's brutal immigration crackdown, discriminatory policies and threats to press freedom mean the tournament risks being defined by exclusion and fear."
Worden pointed to Trump's explicit strategy of weaponizing the World Cup and Winter Olympics to promote his political agenda while simultaneously portraying the tournament as safe and welcoming. "Our message today is it's neither safe nor particularly fun and probably quite unprecedented in the challenges that we're seeing," she said.
A Human Rights Watch survey found that only four of sixteen host cities have published mandatory human rights action plans. Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Vancouver have done so, while others remain silent. The organization also flagged concerns about US travel restrictions affecting multiple World Cup qualifying nations.
Football Supporters Europe, another alliance member, says its group has encountered far less cooperation from US authorities than it received from Qatari officials during preparations for the 2022 World Cup. Martin Endemann, the organization's head of policy, expressed stark concern about the unknown.
"People don't really know what to expect," Endemann said. "I have absolutely no clue what happens after the first protest in the stadium. I have no clue what happens at the first protest outside the stadium. And I have no clue how the police in the US reacts on misdemeanours. What will be the response of the American police?"
The prospect of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids looms particularly large. Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian Football Federation, plans to raise the ICE issue directly with FIFA leadership during the organization's annual congress in Vancouver this week.
"We are very concerned that it should be inclusive and safe for everybody regardless of ethnicity, which country you come from, your sexual orientation," Klaveness said. "This is something we know FIFA agrees with us on and we want to address to FIFA leadership how they are working to prevent, for example, ICE actions to make sure all fans can come to the stadiums safely."
Klaveness is also pushing FIFA to abolish its newly created peace prize after Gianni Infantino, FIFA's president, awarded the inaugural version to Trump at the World Cup draw in December without seeking approval from the FIFA Council. The move prompted FairSquare, an organization focused on accountability in sports governance, to file a formal complaint with FIFA's ethics committee.
FairSquare argued that awarding the prize to Trump violated FIFA's commitment to political neutrality. Klaveness said the Norwegian Football Federation would support calls for a formal investigation into how the prize was granted and has called for the award to be scrapped entirely.
"We think it's important for football federations, confederations and also FIFA to try to avoid situations where this arm's length distance to state leaders is challenged," Klaveness said. "There should be checks and balances on these issues, and this complaint from FairSquare should be treated with a transparent timeline."
Author James Rodriguez: "The World Cup has always been messy, but this feels different: organizers can't even guarantee that fans won't disappear into ICE detention, and FIFA's ethics appear to have evaporated along with its pretense of political neutrality."
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