Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Monday backed a proposal for fans to boycott World Cup matches in the United States due to the behavior of President Donald Trump and his administration at home and abroad.
Blatter is the latest international soccer figure to question the U.S.’s suitability as a host nation. He posted on X calling for a boycott and backed comments made by Mark Pieth in an interview with Swiss newspaper Der Bund last week.
advertise
Pitt, a Swiss lawyer and anti-corruption expert who specializes in white-collar crime, chaired the independent governance committee overseeing FIFA’s reforms a decade ago. Blatter served as president of world football’s governing body from 1998 to 2015; he resigned amid a corruption investigation.
“If we take into account everything we have discussed, there is only one piece of advice for fans: stay away from the United States! You will see better results on TV anyway. Upon arrival, fans should expect that if they do not satisfy the officials, they will be put directly on the next flight home. If they are lucky,” Pease said in an interview with Deutsche Bonde.
Blatter quoted Piessa in his X post and added: “I think Marc Piessa is right to question this World Cup.”
The United States will co-host the World Cup with Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19.
advertise
The international football community’s concerns about the United States stem from Trump’s expansionist posture toward Greenland, his travel ban and his aggressive tactics toward immigration and immigration enforcement protesters in U.S. cities, particularly Minneapolis.
Oke Göttlich, one of the vice-presidents of the German Football Association, told the Hamburg Morning Post on Friday that it was time to seriously consider a boycott of the World Cup.
Travel plans for fans from Africa’s two top soccer nations were thrown into disarray two weeks ago when the Trump administration announced a ban that would effectively bar people from Senegal and Ivory Coast from following their teams unless they already had visas. Trump cited “screening and review deficiencies” as the main reason for the suspension.
Fans from Iran and Haiti, two countries that have qualified for the World Cup, will also be barred from entering the United States; they were included in the first round of travel bans announced by the Trump administration.
___
AP Soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
