In just a few weeks, the FIFA men’s World Cup will begin.
Official propaganda touts it as the most inclusive competition in history: three host countries (United States, Mexico, and Canada), 16 cities where the tournament will take place, and 48 national teams competing for the Cup.
In the group stage, teams will compete in 12 groups of four. The top two from each group and the eight best third‑place teams will advance to the next round. For the first time, the tournament will include a round of 32.
That’s what the official propaganda tells us, but behind the story there is much that has been swept under the rug.
Let’s recall a few cases now.
FIFA was founded in 1904 by seven national football associations.
At that time, it governed a sport that was largely considered amateur.
The influx of big capital began in 1974, when Brazilian João Havelange took over the leadership of the world football body. He hired Joseph Blatter, who initiated institutional relations with the multinational Coca‑Cola and expanded contacts and ties with other large corporations.
In 1995, during a European championship, the international trade union confederation ICFTU contacted UEFA, a highly influential member of FIFA, to complain that the official match balls were being made by Pakistani children aged 5 to 7. This led to an international campaign against child labour. If I remember correctly, the sports company that produced those balls and had ties with FIFA paid the children 39 cents per finished ball, which was then sold on the international market for $75.
The company, for its part, did not hesitate to pay several million dollars to a well‑known athlete to promote the balls. But the criticism was not about how much the children were paid; it was about the child labour used by a multinational corporation while those children should have been studying or playing.
The matter did not end there, because FIFA’s partnership with large corporations in fact pressures host governments to change labour laws to align them with the interests of both the corporations and FIFA.
Before the World Cup held in Brazil in 2014, a “General World Cup Law” was passed, but then‑President Dilma Rousseff vetoed articles 48 and 49, which established voluntary work, since it is a universal principle that all work must be paid. Airfare prices soared uncontrollably. Tickets between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which normally cost 500 reais, were sold for 3,000.
Before the 2018 championship in Russia, Federal Law FZ‑108 was enacted, which allowed the abolition of any regulation or control over foreign or migrant persons hired as “volunteers.”
As early as 2011, Joseph Blatter regretted his decision to award the 2018 and 2022 tournament hosting rights in a single vote, because very serious complaints had emerged regarding the treatment by the Qatari government of migrants working on infrastructure projects for the 2022 championship under a forced labour system called “kafala.”
There were numerous complaints about the poor conditions in which foreign workers lived and the terrible working conditions they had to endure, in temperatures reaching up to 50 degrees Celsius. Many fatalities were reported. Ninety‑five percent of workers in Qatar were migrants earning less than 7,000 per month. The companies in charge of the construction projects were from Germany, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Japan.
Saudi Arabia will host the championship in 2034. Coincidentally, on May 21, 2026, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that Saudi oil company Aramco – one of the biggest earners – refuses to compensate a migrant worker whose leg was crushed by a giant metal beam. That company is one of FIFA’s main sponsors.
Dictatorships and authoritarian practices do not disgust the international football body either.
In 1978, it held the World Cup in Argentina under a dictatorship marked by kidnappings and disappearances. Nor does it shy away from the absolute monarchies of Arab countries.
And this time, given all the persecution of migrants being carried out in the United States, the U.S. labor federation AFL‑CIO has recently made a request to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
The head of the labor organization, Liz Shuler, demands that he protect workers and keep ICE (the agency that arrests and mistreats migrants) away from the cities where matches will be played.
While everything is painted as a celebration of the people, there remains a dark side that must be brought to light.