2026 World Cup falls short on inclusion pledge, rights groups say
The 2026 FIFA World Cup, marketed as the most inclusive tournament in the sport’s history, failed to live up to that promise as the Trump administration’s visa restrictions blocked fans from multiple countries and prevented at least one referee from even setting foot on the pitch, according to the Sport & Rights Alliance.
The coalition of human rights organizations made the assessment public on Thursday, announcing it will release a full report in September documenting what it describes as systemic failures across the tournament.
Fans turned away before kickoff
For thousands of would-be attendees, the World Cup was over before it started. Supporters from several nations — many of them Muslim-majority countries subject to tightened U.S. entry restrictions — were denied visas or faced such bureaucratic uncertainty that they simply didn’t bother applying. The Sport & Rights Alliance didn’t release a full country-by-country breakdown Thursday, but said the September report would include specific figures on visa denials tied to national origin.
It’s a stark contrast to what FIFA promised when it awarded the tournament to the United States, Canada, and Mexico back in 2018. The governing body repeatedly said the tri-nation format would open the game to more fans than ever before. But hosting a World Cup in the United States in 2025 meant contending with an immigration policy environment that FIFA, critics say, was either unwilling or unable to navigate.
A referee who never got to referee
Perhaps the most concrete symbol of the problem was the case of an unnamed referee who was barred from officiating at the tournament after being denied entry to the United States. The Sport & Rights Alliance cited the case as evidence that the exclusions weren’t limited to fans in the stands.
“FIFA made a commitment to the world that this tournament would belong to everyone,” a spokesperson for the Sport & Rights Alliance said Thursday. “What we saw instead was a tournament shaped by the politics of the host country, and FIFA has to answer for that.”
FIFA’s silence and shifting responsibility
FIFA did not respond to a request for comment before publication. The organization has historically been cautious about publicly criticizing host government policies, even when those policies conflict with its own anti-discrimination rules. That caution, rights groups argue, amounts to tacit acceptance.
The tension isn’t new. Qatar 2022 drew sustained criticism over migrant worker conditions and restrictions on LGBTQ+ fans. Now the 2026 edition faces its own reckoning.
Still, the political dynamics here are different. This wasn’t a distant authoritarian state. This was the United States.
What comes next
The September report from the Sport & Rights Alliance is expected to run to dozens of pages, covering visa denials, press freedom concerns, and treatment of protesters who demonstrated outside several venues during the tournament. Rights groups say they intend to use the findings to pressure FIFA ahead of the 2030 World Cup, which is slated to span three continents.
Whether FIFA listens is another question entirely.
