Football finally has the only 2 teams that matter in America

The World Cup returns to American soil next month, but the bipartisan excitement that once greeted the announcement has given way to a familiar divide. Republicans see a showcase of national prestige and economic might; Democrats see rising costs, immigration enforcement and Donald Trump. The partisan polarization around the world’s largest sporting event has begun to affect preparations nationwide. A recent Senate hearing on federal readiness split on party lines. Some of the nation’s most prominent Democrats are warning that the tournament won’t be safe. Others have begun treating FIFA, the governing body behind the World Cup, as an adjunct of the Trump administration — and they are attacking it with the same populist language they typically use for oil companies and pharmaceutical producers. “I think it shows how big this is, more than anything,” White House FIFA World Cup 2026 Task Force executive director Andrew Giuliani said of the partisan conflict emerging around the tournament. “When politicians see something that’s going to get eyeballs and attention, they latch on. There’s a great opportunity to tell their narrative, whether it’s true or false,” added Giuliani, a former Republican candidate for governor of New York. “We’re going to certainly tell our side of the story, which we believe to be true, and Democrats are going to tell their side of the story as well.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has accused Trump of caring “more about being on international TV at midfield on match day than actually hosting successful games.” Senator Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, warned in a recent letter to the Department of Homeland Security last month that the administration is hampering preparations by “systematically dismantling security agencies, delaying critical security assistance, and initiating a war with Iran.” Democratic mayors of the country’s two largest cities have criticized FIFA for its high ticket prices. That criticism appears to derive at least in part from the World Cup’s close association with the White House, where Trump treats FIFA President Gianni Infantino like an allied head of state. Weeks after Trump’s reelection, World Cup host committees — the local organizing institutions which contract with FIFA in 11 U. S. cities that will feature matches – abandoned its Democratic-led lobbying team in favor of one led by former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman that specialized in outreach to Republicans. The polarization is now affecting World Cup views among everyone from American voters — who now tell pollsters they are divided by party on Iran’s participation and ICE’s role in tournament security — to the Congressional Soccer Caucus, a bipartisan group that built broad coalitions to cheerlead the tournament’s arrival and help line up federal funding. “FIFA fundamentally disagrees with the one-sided premise of this story,” said FIFA World Cup 2026 chief operating officer Heimo Schirgi. “The FIFA World Cup is a unifier and bigger than any political party lines. Across all forms of government, from local to state to Congressional to federal, we have seen strong bipartisan support for the tournament, and the entire United States wants this FIFA World Cup to be as successful as possible.” “To insinuate that we are acting in a politically influenced manner is baseless and false,” said Schirgi. A friendly match turns competitive In April 2018, as FIFA entered its final deliberations over where to place the 2026 World Cup, the House of Representatives faced a vote to show support for a joint bid mounted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. The resolution passed overwhelmingly, with only three Republicans voting against. The effort to win votes for the symbolic measure was led by leaders of the Congressional Soccer Caucus, a 66-member group founded in 2001. Until the World Cup came back to the United States, the caucus effectively managed the world’s most high-powered rec league. It organized the first charity Congressional Soccer match in 2013, pitting Republican and Democratic members of Congress. Now the event includes a staff versus lobbyist match and an embassy cup featuring 16 embassy delegations. The caucus drew dozens of lawmakers from across the ideological spectrum, often bonded over a personal interest in soccer as former players, fans or parents. (The caucus has yet to remove former member Eric Swalwell, the California Democrat who resigned from Congress last month under allegations of sexual misconduct, from its list of members online.) Its four co-chairs span both parties. The arrival of the World Cup gave the group actual lawmaking to do. In September 2024, the caucus’s leaders were back on the House floor with the FIFA World Cup 2026 Commemorative Coin Act, which aimed to fund legacy programs to expand youth soccer access in underserved communities. The bill, led by two Democrats and two Republicans, passed unanimously. Under the Biden administration, federal agencies began working with the 11 U. S. host cities, many of them Democratic-led. FIFA used annual gatherings of mayors and governors as opportunities to work local politicians, particularly those leading the jurisdictions with World Cup matches. In 2023, those host cities hired a lobbying team from Foley & Lardner led by former congressman Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat. In the weeks after Trump’s 2024 reelection, FIFA redirected its lobbying efforts. As Washington prepared for a Republican trifecta, the host committees dropped Cardoza’s Democrat-led team for a Republican-focused lobbying team from firm Hogan Lovells led by Coleman, who campaigned for Trump as chair. of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Trump responded in kind, publicly tying himself to the tournament throughout 2025. He has appeared in public with Infantino more than with any other world leader, enlisting him as an ally in policy matters well beyond sports. During a joint appearance with FIFA’s president in the Oval about World Cup visa processing in November, Trump declined to rule out military action in Mexico. Infantino attended the signing of an October ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza, and then months later participated in the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace in a red MAGA-style hat. In December, Infantino invented a FIFA Peace Prize to award Trump in the form of a trophy, a medal and a certificate. As the American cities designated to host matches agitated for federal funds to offset heightened security and transit funds, soccer-caucus leaders often took the lead on the Hill. They helped to secure $625 million in federal security grants for host cities, one of the few areas of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill that won active support from Democrats. (The whole bill nevertheless passed by a party-line vote.) ”It had broad bipartisan support because the 11 host cities were all talking to members of Congress and senators on both sides,” Congressman Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican, said in an interview. “And to the credit of the Trump administration, you know, they went to bat.” But the $625 million in federal security funding was slow to move out to cities. In August, the Trump administration issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity that listed “no later than” Jan. 30, 2026, as the anticipated date to grant awards. But when that deadline passed, the cities had yet to receive any notification, leaving them uncertain about tens of millions of dollars they had counted on to stage the tournament. Democrats in the soccer caucus began to drop the we’re-all-on-the-same-team sensibility. In November, New Jersey Congresswoman Nellie Pou — whose district includes MetLife Stadium, where the tournament’s final match will be played on July 19 — wrote to the Department of Homeland Security… “Clearly time went by, and it didn’t happen,” said Pou. “The politicization of this World Cup was really started by this administration.” A focus on the Department of Homeland Security’s role in the tournament further split the soccer caucus on partisan lines. Democrats grew concerned about communications from federal agencies suggesting they would deploy immigration and border agents at FIFA events. When Homeland Security — the federal arm working most closely with the White House’s task force — was partially shut down to congressional deadlock, both sides blamed one another for imperiling the tournament experience. “The longer Democrats refuse to appropriately fund DHS,” wrote Republican congressmen Mark Alford of Missouri and Derek Schmidt of Kansas — whose Kansas City area is hosting five matches — in early March, “the more difficult it becomes for host cities to finalize contracts, procure equipment, and complete the necessary planning to safely host this global event.” Ticket to collide When FIFA began listing match tickets for sale starting in the fall of 2025, the staggering prices — both for those being sold directly through an opaque process and in a FIFA-run resale marketplace — drew shock from fan organizations and politicians worldwide. The Swiss-based non-profit organization has said that it will reinvest a majority of its tournament revenue into the 211 member federations “to boost global football development.” But that has not prevented Democratic politicians from talking about FIFA as another nemesis in the affordability wars that have come to define the era’s debates over political economy. (Even Trump recoiled this week when told tickets to the U. S. team’s opening match against Paraguay, in Los Angeles, were selling for $1,000.) At a U. S. Conference of Mayors meeting where Infantino was in attendance, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blasted the World Cup as too costly for fans, contrasting it with the 2028 Olympics in her city, which she says will have more accessible prices. “That’s the thing that is unfortunate about FIFA,” Bass, a Democrat seeking reelection in a nonpartisan primary that will take place a week before the World Cup begins, said at the January conference. “Because even the nosebleed tickets are hundreds of dollars.” In March, one out of three House Democrats signed onto a letter demanding FIFA reduce ticket prices. “FIFA maintains control over the tournament’s most lucrative revenue streams, while host cities and their residents are left to shoulder the substantial costs of accommodating millions of visitors, often without meaningful access to the matches themselves,” read the letter drafted by Los Angeles-area Democrat Sydney Kamlager-Dove and signed by 68 of her colleagues. Other prominent Democrats, especially those around the New York and New Jersey region where eight matches including the final will be held, have emerged as FIFA’s most vocal critics. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill has attacked the soccer nonprofit for raking in $11 billion from the World Cup while state and local governments pick up the tab for security and transportation. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani launched a “Game Over Greed” petition aimed at lowering ticket prices. Schumer has warned fans are “getting fleeced.” The party’s pressure-group allies, too, are targeting the World Cup. The ACLU and NAACP signed a letter calling for to FIFA to uphold human rights. A powerful Los Angeles service union has lodged a federal complaint with Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium charging the hospitality company that operates the food, beverage and retail services there for creating an unsafe work environment. This week, the AFL-CIO wrote a letter asking FIFA’s leadership to publicly demand the Trump administration keep ICE agents out of host cities, and seeking confirmation that the administration will not launch immigration operations targeting workers, spectators or other members of th…