Dear sport leaders, drop the slogans if you’re not going to be a force for good

As the world watched the final votes being counted in the US election, one person in particular should have been nervous about Donald Trump’s victory: Fifa president Gianni Infantino.

Infantino had previously claimed that the upcoming 2026 World Cup was “a rallying cry […] a moment when three countries and an entire continent collectively say: ‘We are united as one to welcome the world and deliver the biggest, best and most inclusive Fifa World Cup ever’.”

His very own 2026 Human Rights Framework seeks to protect at-risk groups, including refugees, immigrants, LGBTQ+ communities and even journalists.

Trump has not only actively sought to attack almost every group on this list, but the core premise of MAGA is to put up barriers with the world, not least its neighbour and co-host Mexico. 

What a calamity for Fifa, you might think. Yet Infantino led the congratulations to the new president elect, sharing pictures of them both celebrating the successful American bid (which in one of those unpredictable twists, happened in Trump’s first term).

Perhaps Infantino was just biting his lip and duly paying homage to the world’s most powerful man?

Maybe he had in mind the words of former Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke, who said “less democracy is sometimes better for organising a World Cup”?

Or was he comparing the close personal relationship he has with Trump against the FBI investigation into his organisation, initiated under a Democrat administration?

Whatever his reason for adulation, the part of his message that offended me was signing it off with Fifa’s slogan, “Football Unites The World”. 

I hate the lazy assumption that sport is an automatic force for good that unites us. 

Try telling India or Pakistan fans that cricket unites them, or Israeli football supporters that sport softens tensions. That’s just from this week alone; it’s preceded by a century of sport being used to foster division, nationalism and even violence.

Why then do we let the organisers of sports mega events spout these romantic claims without any accountability?

The answer is, sadly, because we don’t take sport seriously enough. Many think that it’s a pretty harmless force, that global mega events are a nice distraction from the woes of the world.

Some people do take sport seriously though. If you read the new book States of Play by Miguel Delaney you’ll see the level of patience, planning and financial commitment from certain states and organisations to control football. Why do this if sport is harmless?

Delaney quotes Ronan Evain from Football Supporters Europe who claims that football “is attractive to some of the worst people in the world, whether it is authoritarian regimes, private equity or toxic investors”.

I’m not sure it’s helpful to define good and evil so bluntly. Life is more complicated than that. Trump is representing the will of 50.2 per cent of the American people. 

But we can’t seriously be claiming that this next World Cup and the LA 2028 Olympics are about uniting the world when he’s handing out the medals.

There has to be a way we can do better. If we strategically started using these mega events to benefit a predetermined global cause, not just propagate the host country’s nationalistic agenda, what could we achieve? If we took them as seriously as Putin, Xi and King Salman clearly do, where would it take us?

You can call me naive for wishing it so, but it’s better than closing your eyes and believing that sport makes the world better on its own. You only need to look at recent history to see how global sport is failing all of us.

Imagine the impact the first ever World Cup in the Middle East could have had in 2022? With careful consideration, it could have brought West and East closer together, improved human rights, influenced global oil production and reduced religious tension.

Instead, we had an event shrouded in corruption and full of moral confusion. Considering the threat of all-out war in the Middle East two years later, what would we give to have that chance again?

The same is true for Paris 2024. It was billed as the greenest Olympics ever, but did it go far enough to inspire hope when the light of the Paris Climate agreement has all but gone out? Will future generations look back and say that was a missed opportunity?

This all leads us back to the US. The world needs America to be actively involved in common causes, not an isolationist super state. 

Do the World Cup and Olympics become platforms to push a nationalistic agenda like so many governments have done before? Or can the organisers of these events step up and do the job they claim to do? After all, these are global events, they don’t belong to the host nation, corporate sponsors or organising committees; they belong to all of us.  

If sports leaders don’t see this as their job, fine, but please at least drop the slogans.