Fresh calls to boycott this summer’s World Cup have surfaced, this time led by warnings over fan safety from one of football’s most unexpected critics.
Former FIFA President Joseph Sepp Blatter has told football fans to “stay away from the USA” ahead of this year’s World Cup.
Blatter was the centre of attention on January 26 after posting on X in both English and French advising supporters not to travel to the US for football’s biggest event.
“For the fans, there’s only one piece of advice: stay away from the USA!” he wrote. “I think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup.”
Mark Pieth, whom Blatter referenced, is a Swiss governance expert and founder of the Basel Institute on Governance, a position he held until 2022. His remarks were made in an interview with Swiss newspaper Der Bund, where he described the US as in a “huge uproar.”
“The marginalisation of political opponents, the attacks by immigration authorities and so on, does not turn you on as a fan to travel there,” Pieth told the publication.
“When entering the country, fans must be prepared for the fact that, if the officials don’t like them, they will be sent straight back home on the next flight. If they’re lucky.”
Political tensions around the tournament
Since US President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, his administration has captured global attention for domestic and foreign policy decisions, including trade disputes with China and Europe and increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement.
Immigration has become a central pillar of Trump’s presidency, with critics arguing operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resemble military style interventions in US cities. Eight people have reportedly been killed during ICE enforcement operations since January 2026, according to The Guardian.
Calls to boycott the upcoming World Cup were first made earlier this month after figures, including British journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan, urged fans to stay away as a means of protesting what they described as Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, which the President has framed as a national security issue.
FIFA governance and World Cup scrutiny
Pieth’s comments align with his persistent criticism of FIFA governance and World Cup hosting decisions, including Saudi Arabia’s unopposed appointment as host of the 2034 tournament.
“In my interpretation, it’s all about money. Saudi Arabia was elected unopposed, not at a FIFA congress but in a virtual meeting with all participants applauding. There was no debate or criticism from FIFA’s member associations,” Pieth said in an interview with Play the Game in December 2025.
“This illustrates how FIFA ignores its own human rights policy. But to me, it is also a shocking illustration of what democracy means in FIFA. So, we have a compliance system in FIFA that doesn’t look bad on paper, but it’s a paper tiger operated by people who cosy up to autocrats and dictators to enrich themselves as quickly as possible.”
Pieth has also worked closely with London barrister Rodney Dixon, who represents Hatice Cengiz, the Turkish fiancée of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered by Saudi government agents in 2018.
Look who’s talking
Blatter’s intervention has raised eyebrows, given his own controversial past at FIFA. He resigned as president in 2015 following a corruption scandal, which exposed decades of alleged bribery and governance failures within world football’s governing body.
In 2025, however, Blatter was cleared of fraud charges by the Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court.
Despite being very critical of Blatter during his tenure, Pieth offered a comparison in his interview with Play the Game.
“Blatter is a strange animal. But compared to what is going on inside FIFA now, the dirty tricks that were exposed when he was president of FIFA are only petty stuff,” he said.
