The World Cup can show nations at their best. It may show the US at its worst

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The 2026 Fifa World Cup begins tonight as Mexico plays South Africa in the Estadio Azteca. Sprawling across Mexico, Canada and the United States, this will be the biggest World Cup yet, with 48 nations playing 104 matches across nearly six weeks.

So what? Fifa president Gianni Infantino has promised “the greatest event that humanity, that mankind, has ever seen”. But perhaps even more than in Russia and Qatar, the tournament risks being overshadowed by a drumbeat of controversy, including

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  officials, coaches, supporters and a Fifa referee being denied visas or entry to the US;

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  high ticket, travel and accommodation prices, forcing many fans to stay home; and

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  Donald Trump co-opting the sport’s popularity at every opportunity.

New frontier. This is the first World Cup where a host nation has been at war with a competing nation. Iran claims that 15 officials and staff have been denied entry to the US, including the president of the Iranian federation.

Short stay. Numerous staff members have only been granted 24-hour visas, meaning they must enter and leave the US on the same day, despite World Cup regulations dictating that every team travels the day before each match. The US state department said it would not allow Iran to “abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretences”. Iran has been forced to move its training base from Arizona to Tijuana.

Insult to injury. The Iranian football federation also announced on Tuesday that Fifa has revoked fans’ ticket allocation for the three group games, which are all hosted in the US. In principle each national federation has a right to distribute 8% of the seats at any match in which it’s taking part.

Barred. But Iran is the tip of the iceberg for heavy-handed immigration policy and the threat of ICE aggression. BBC analysis has found fans from more than a quarter of competing nations are affected by either travel bans (placed on Haiti, Iran, Senegal and Ivory Coast), increased restrictions or heightened visa rejection rates. Julien Kouadio Adonis from the Ivory Coast fan association said: "It’s a form of segregation that doesn’t dare speak its name.”

Red card. Omar Artan, the Confederation of African Football’s men’s referee of the year, has been dropped from the list of Fifa officials after being denied entry to the US. Artan would have been the first Somali to referee at a World Cup. Fifa said it is “not involved in host country immigration processes”, though it previously stated the opposite. Senegal and Uzbekistan’s squads have also been filmed being searched on the tarmac after their flights landed.

Priced out. If fans do make it to the US, they face massive costs. The cheapest ticket available for any of England’s group games was £164, but most exceeded £320. Standard tickets for the final ranged from £3,119 to £6,615. Hospitality packages are much more expensive.

For the few. Fifa has taken control of ticket resale, creating a platform which lists 176,000 available tickets, the vast majority of which are being sold well above face value. The cheapest resale ticket for Haiti’s first game is $546, more than the median individual annual income there.

Price of friendship. Those close to Infantino claim his long-standing sycophancy towards Trump is justified by the belief that keeping the president on side will help the World Cup.

What’s more… There is little evidence of this and plenty of time for the situation to worsen. The first match on US soil, between the US and Paraguay, kicks off on Saturday at 2am BST. It is unclear how both ICE and respective police forces will treat fans on the ground.

Photograph by Hassan Ali Elmi / AFP via Getty Images