According to the George W. Bush Presidential Center, "autocrats often pervert" the idea that "sports can be great unifiers and forces for good."
One famous example cited by the George W. Bush Institute's Celia Siade-Cox is the 1936 Berlin Olympics, an event famously embraced by Adolf Hitler as an opportunity for personal branding as well an occasion to project national greatness and sanitize exclusionary politics.
But not all branding opportunities succeed as planned.
History remembers the 1936 Summer Olympics much differently than Hitler intended: not as a showcase for Aryan supremacy, but as the stage on which, as Siade-Cox writes, Jesse Owens, a Black American athlete, not only "defied Nazi Germany’s racist worldview to win four gold medals in track and field," but also "demonstrated the power of sport to challenge fascism and bigotry."
Putin, Xi and MBS are among today's biggest proponents of "sportswashing"
A more recent example of autocratic sportswashing occurred during Trump's first term when he saw his chief political benefactor Vladimir Putin proudly host the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Trump watched again in 2022 as Xi Jingping, an authoritarian Trump has praised as "a brilliant man" and "straight out of 'central casting'" welcomed the 2022 Summer Olympics to Beijing.
The power of sportswashing was underscored further when Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Jared Kushner's chief financial benefactor, turned the world's most famous soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo, into the sport's first billionaire.
Before a ball has been kicked, the 2026 World Cup has already been tarnished by Trump
On 11 June, the men's 2026 soccer World Cup will kick off in Mexico City and the tournament will continue for 39 days in 16 cities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
But thanks to Gianni Infantino, president of the tournament's corruption-plagued organizer FIFA, a single leader will once again be at the center of the spectacle.
Despite the fact that the idea for a joint bid to host the World Cup originated during Obama's presidency, Trump quickly bonded with FIFA President Infantino during a 2018 White House visit that took place after the U.S., Canada, and Mexico were announced as the 2026 hosts.
Once inside the Oval Office, Infantino gifted America's most corrupt man-child with a soccer ball, a personalized jersey and a referee's red card (used for "sending offs") which Trump quickly brandished at the assembled reporters in the room.
Back in 2018, Trump didn't expect to be in office for this year's World Cup.
Having returned to office in 2025, Trump has — in the great authoritarian tradition — shoved aside Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to make himself the dominant face of the 2026 World Cup.
In the great Trump tradition, he's demanding all of the glory for the global spectacle despite doing none of the work.
But not all branding opportunities succeed as planned.
After being infantilized by Infantino, Trump now faces mockery from the media — and fury from fans
Trump had a World Cup practice run when the U.S. hosted the FIFA Club World Cup in the summer of 2025.
And Infantino indulged all of Trump's schoolboy fantasies along the way.
Before the tournament even took place, the FIFA chief allowed the U.S. president to commandeer the original $230,000 gold-plated Tiffany trophy for himself.
Infantino then allowed Trump to present tournament winners Chelsea of the Premier League with a replacement trophy after they beat France's Paris St. Germain in the final game at MetLife Stadium.
Having presented the substitute trophy, the spotlight-hogging Trump stubbornly refused to leave the stage to allow the winning team their traditional celebration, causing confusion among the players and widespread mockery online.
But, this being Trump, an even more embarrassing photo op was still ahead.
On 5 December 2025, in one of the most ridiculous fake ceremonies ever, Infantino presented the newly invented and highly incongruous "FIFA Peace Prize" to perpetual Nobel Prize reject Donald Trump.
As Stephen Colbert said at the time: "Call me a boomer, but these participation trophies have gone too far."
Trump's World Cup is showcasing the damage he has done to America's global standing
According to Gallup, global approval of the U.S. plunged to 31% in 2025, five points below China. Disapproval of U.S. leadership also hit a record-high of 48%.
Within NATO, approval plunged to 21%, below the average of Trump's first term and well below the levels seen under Obama and Biden.
According to Gallup:
Compared with 2024, U.S. leadership approval has fallen most in Germany (-39 points) and Portugal (-38 points), with 16 other countries showing declines of at least 10 points... Poland (68%) and Albania (64%) are the only NATO countries where a majority of residents approved of Washington in 2025, whereas approval ratings dipped to roughly one in 10 across Nordic countries, including Sweden (9%), Iceland (9%) and Norway (10%).
Today, as Trump family corruption sparks mass protests in Albania, it's safe to say that his approval is dropping like a stone there, too.
According to Pew, Trump is personally dragging America's reputation down:
Ratings of Trump are especially negative in Mexico (where 91% have little or no confidence in Trump’s ability to do the right thing regarding world affairs), Sweden (85%), Germany (81%), Spain (80%) and Turkey (80%).
Majorities in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Turkey have no confidence at all in Trump.
A recent poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations showed that among EU citizens, only 16% now consider the US an ally, while 20% see it as a rival or an enemy.
Trump's politics of exclusion have turned a soccer celebration into a football fiasco
Most recent World Cups — from South Africa in 2010 (the first World Cup held in Africa) to Brazil in 2014 to Russia in 2018 to Qatar in 2022 (the first World Cup held in the Middle East) — have created cost and logistics challenges for international fans. Whether before or after arriving in host countries, fans expect to be charged hundreds of dollars for official tickets — or to be forced to try their luck with scalpers and scammers.
This time around, the sticker shock has priced many true fans out of the market for tickets. And, unlike previous tournaments, there's such a dearth of subsidized tickets for locals, you have to enter a lottery to win them.
For many fans, traveling to the U.S. isn't even an option.
Ahead of World Cup 2026, Trump banned (either fully and partially) citizens from 39 countries from entering the U.S. Four of those countries — Haiti, Iran, Ivory Coast, and Senegal — qualified for the tournament, with Haiti's and Iran's fans fully banned, and Ivory Coast's and Senegal's fans facing daunting restrictions.
Fans from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which also qualified for the World Cup, but where "Elon's Ebola Epidemic" is currently raging, are now also banned from coming to the U.S. for the tournament.
Meanwhile, reports The Guardian, "several competing nations suffer from standard US visa rejection rates exceeding 40%, including Uzbekistan and Ecuador, alongside numerous entrants from Africa and the Middle East."
The Trump Administration has even blocked from entering the U.S. a highly respected FIFA referee from Somalia, at least 15 Iranian officials and team staff, and an Iraqi team photographer.
Even blonde-haired Norwegians — for whom Trump once promised to roll out the red carpet — are no longer protected from the brutality of Trump's immigration goons.
Stories like that of Hanne Daguman (née Engan), a diabetic 24-year-old from Norway who nearly died after being denied insulin at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California are why citizens of many other nations have repeatedly expressed fear of traveling to the U.S. for World Cup 2026.
Trump and his administration have done nothing to allay concerns about hostile treatment at the border or to reduce the "climate of fear" about the kinds of intimidation fans may face from ICE and U.S. police once they enter the country.
Perhaps it's no wonder that, before it has even begun, international media are suggesting that Trump's may be the "Worst World Cup Ever."
Because whether it's the World Cup, the Knicks' 13-game winning streak, or the reputation of America itself, one thing remains constant: Everything Trump touches dies.
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