Jules Boykoff on the "Paradoxical Nature" of the 2026 World Cup
An interview with the author of Red Card about the highs and lows of the tournament.
Copies of Golden Goal are here! They’re beautiful—and you can buy them on our website.
If you’re in New York City, we’ll be celebrating our friend Jules Boykoff’s exceptional and important new book Red Card this evening at 6:30p.m. at the Francis Kite Club in the Lower East Side. RSVP here.
Fittingly, today’s newsletter is an interview with Jules Boykoff. If you’re looking for an incisive, authoritative look at the state of the beautiful game in 2026—either as a newcomer to the sport or as a diehard fan—Red Card is essential. A sweeping history of sportswashing, authoritarianism, and greed in soccer, Red Card is also a clear-eyed, damning look at this tournament. If you’re a fan of Golden Goal, you’ll love Red Card—our spiritual sibling.
We’re talking right before the end of the first fixture of the Group Stage. What do you think about the tournament so far?
I think it’s a split picture affair so far. Some of the football on the pitch, just like we expected, has been remarkable. Cabo Verde tying Spain, for example. We’ve had some exciting matches, like Iran - New Zealand on Monday. But anyone who knows football knew we were going to get surprises and great matches.
The other side of that split picture isn’t pretty. It involves a pall that has been cast over the tournament by U.S. President Donald Trump and his lickspittle sidekick Gianni Infantino, who have worked together to squeeze every dollar out of the tournament but also every ounce of solidarity that could have been achieved out of it as well.
Yeah I feel like it’s a World Cup with a lot of “buts” so far. For instance, Cabo Verde result was incredible, but the mother of Vozinha, the team’s heroic goalkeeper, couldn’t attend because of visa restrictions. And then, of course, there’s Iran…
It perfectly captures the paradoxical nature of the tournament. On one hand, Cabo Verde was only included because this is the most inclusive tournament ever, in terms of having the most teams ever. On the other, [Vozinha’s] comments about his mother not being there because of the exclusionary nature of the tournament were heartbreaking. That kind of captures it all in one heartrending moment. It didn’t have to be this way. These were political decisions made by the Trump administration that were not properly challenged by Gianni Infantino—at every step of the way.
As for the Iran game, that was a double debacle of strategic stupidity on the part of both Trump, on one hand, and also Infantino. If Trump or the White House were thinking strategically they would welcome Team Melli into this tournament with open arms. Four years ago, they didn’t sing the national anthem in their first match in Qatar and that sent a message to the activists back home that they weren’t 100 percent with the government. It’s a strategic blunder to give up that opportunity.
With Infantino, he gave that Peace Prize to Trump ahead of the tournament. He should have waited and said “At the end of this tournament, someone—I don’t know who—is going to get the first ever FIFA Peace Prize” and maybe, just maybe that would have put President Trump on better behavior—though I know that’s a stretch. Still, it’s like giving the gold away before anyone even vaguely earned it.
Do you think this has been worth it for the “lickspittle sidekick” Infantino?
He’s a long-term lickspittle.
A professional lickspittle.
Right! You can understand a lot about what Infantino does if you just focus only on the money shuffle: Set soccer aside and just focus on the money. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep FIFA’s money spigot open, whether it’s playing football with Vladimir Putin in Red Square in January of 2018, whether its moving his family to Qatar and running interference on the human rights issues that were being thrown their way, or whether it’s sucking up to Donald Trump and even attending Melania’s film.
So was it worth it? I think he would definitely say yes. If you look at the tournament solely through the lens of money. I personally expect them to exceed the $11 billion they initially estimated for the tournament alone. You’d have to ask him to know for sure, but if you think about FIFA solely through a monetary lens then this is a success. The tournament has tapped into one of the biggest growth markets out there, setting aside China, India, maybe Indonesia. Of course, to say it’s a success is to set aside what the game’s really about. He’s certainly willing to sacrifice the people’s game on the altar of making money for FIFA.
Let’s talk a bit about what the game’s really about. We’ve seen a lot of that too—I’m thinking especially of the way that fans in Lawrence, Kansas have welcomed the Algerian team, which has its base camp in the town.
I find it totally heartening… I think it’s a lot more important than many people are letting on. The World Cup provides people in the United States [with an opportunity] to show that not everybody can simply be reduced down to or distilled down to MAGA. The United States is not MAGA. It’s not the cruel illusion of Trump’s imagination. I think this is a great opportunity for people in Kansas City and Lawrence to say “We’re glad you’re here. We think immigration thickens the braid of society.” So when I see that, that’s what the tournament is about. It shows what this tournament could have been despite the depredations of Donald Trump and the greed factory that is FIFA.
I had big fears going into this tournament and [still do]. I mean, we’re living in a country with extraordinary ambient violence… We’re living in a really dangerous time. I think that a MAGA movement that is both emboldened and aggrieved at the same time was going to lash out against radicalized fans or just any fans that were celebrating and being normal soccer fans and having fun. So far, I haven’t heard anything like that. We’re just hearing positives and that brings me great relief. I view that as very much of a positive. This isn’t a simple affair here. It’s a complex endeavor.
Speaking of complex endeavors, one of the things your book does really well is enhance and expand the definition of “sportswashing.” Can you talk a bit about how you see the term?
When people talk about whether sportswashing works, they often mean “Does it work on an international audience?” You could argue with Qatar that it worked on an international audience. If you except this recent blip with the Iran War, tourism has only gone up for Qatar after the World Cup. They’ve become an ever stronger diplomatic force in the region.
They set out to become the new Switzerland and basically succeeded.
In that sense, sportswashing worked on an international audience. Trump has made it clear he [does not] care about the international audience. That’s not who this World Cup is for. He can politically gain domestically with this performative security culture with the Uzbek team and the Senegalese team and others. That for him isn’t about an international audience, it’s about sending a message to his MAGA base that we’re still in charge here even though all these brown people are coming to our country—we’re going to give ‘em hell when they get here. When we think about sportswashing, we need to look domestically. It’s a bifurcated audience when it comes to sportswashing. Emphasis usually falls one way or the other and with this tournament it’s firmly on the domestic audience.
What does that tell you about the meaning of “sportswashing” in 2026?
When people previously have used the term “sportswashing” they tend to waggle a finger at people in those other places—Qatar, Russia, China—as if it could never happen in a place like the United States, a place that thinks of itself as a democracy. There’s a vigorous debate in academic circles about how to define sportswashing. This is a nerd flex but I wrote the first academic, peer-reviewed paper on the topic of sportswashing and I defined it in a way that was very political. Some will tell you it’s just about deflecting attention from accountability.
But I think when you only focus on deflecting attention, you miss these questions that we’re talking about—about multiple audiences, about domestic and international concerns. You miss how politicians can gain from sportswashing—maybe the midterms for Trump. You miss economic advancement—you know, Jared Kushner and Musk sitting in the box seats at Qatar. The same thing is happening at this World Cup. They’re cutting deals. Similarly, there’s a lot of diplomacy happening, as we also saw in Qatar. If when you’re talking about sportswashing you decide to lop off the political, economic, and diplomatic advances—the main driver of why countries do it—then you’re really just half-stepping with your analysis. This World Cup, I hope, will have a lot of scales from a lot of eyes from people who have used the term “sportswashing” in an ethnocentric, if not xenophobic, fashion in the past.
It seems like Trump himself will drive that shift. The World Cup, the NBA Finals, the UFC White House sham...
As Trump’s approval ratings dwindle, he has ever more incentive to cling to sports. They are going full on in sports. It’s like a political life raft for him. I’ve been exploring this idea in recent years that politicians can be more politically effective by being less explicitly political. Sports is the perfect vector for testing that idea. When he sits there ringside at the UFC and has all that pseudo macho stuff going on around him he’s not embracing politics directly—he’s not saying “vote for me in November”—it certainly is rippling with politics indirectly.
He’s made it clear in his public statements that the World Cup, that UFC fight, and certainly the L.A. Olympics are really important to his political legacy. He’s always taking credit for that stuff. Here’s the thing: When it comes to sportswashing there’s always an implicit gamble. With Russia and Qatar, the thing you can say about their sportswashing effort is that once the [World Cup] began they had pretty good message discipline. That plays into this narrative we talk about where there’s a political discussion before the tournament and then once it begins it falls away. I would say if that happened there it was in large part because they had message discipline. Donald Trump does not have message discipline. This is the most erratic president in American history.
That is the wild card in this situation. With those previous World Cups, they had message discipline and focus did indeed move off of the social and economic problems that were in those countries. Because Trump loves the political spotlight and he needs political wins right now, I’m not convinced this tournament is going to adhere to the previous pattern. You’re already seeing it persist with the [Somali] referee being denied [entry,] with Iran being put through the ringer… if he continues to do this cruel, performative security theater this won’t go away and this tournament will be markedly different. I just don’t see it going away.
Published on Golden Goal:
“I can’t help but think of the anguish each player felt every time they played a World Cup match. What other losses were the players of La Selecta carrying as they heard their national anthem ring loud in Spanish stadiums?”Read Javier Zamora on the mythical Salvadorian player, Jorge “El Mágico” González, and turning away from this year’s World Cup here.
“Even back then, there was not much time for football. On top of my studies, I had to earn my bread through all kinds of temporary work: loading railway wagons with watermelons, onions, or cabbages; baking bread for other people’s celebrations.” Read the exiled novelist Hamid Ismailov on the heyday of Uzbek football here.
“As FIFA has centralized the production of World Cup music, the tournament’s soundtrack has lapsed into globalized slop.” Read Akhil Vaidya on the decline of World Cup music here.
“With the World Cup, I’ve joined a community that can be counted in billions. Even though I don’t really care about what’s happening on the field, just having the TV tuned to a game gives me the feeling of connecting across distance and time zones, bonded by the shared experience of watching a bunch of men running around and pretending to be injured.” Read Grace Segers on how to know nothing about soccer and still enjoy the World Cup here.
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