Ex-FIFA President Josep Blatter Joins Those Calling For Boycott Of World Cup In United States

Last Updated:January 27, 2026, 08:49 IST

Sepp Blatter supports a fan boycott of US World Cup matches over Trump policies, joining others as travel bans hit Senegal, Ivory Coast, Iran, and Haiti.

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter

Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter on Monday endorsed a proposed fan boycott of World Cup matches in the United States due to President Donald Trump and his administration’s conduct domestically and internationally.

Blatter is the latest international soccer figure to question the United States’ suitability as a host country. He expressed his support for the boycott in a post on X that echoed comments made by Mark Pieth in an interview last week with the Swiss newspaper Der Bund.

Pieth, a Swiss attorney specializing in white-collar crime and an anti-corruption expert, chaired the Independent Governance Committee’s oversight of FIFA reform a decade ago. Blatter, who served as president of the world’s governing body for soccer from 1998-2015, resigned amid a corruption investigation.

In his interview with Der Bund, Pieth said, “If we consider everything we’ve discussed, there’s only one piece of advice for fans: Stay away from the USA! You’ll see it better on TV anyway. And upon arrival, fans should expect that if they don’t please the officials, they’ll be put straight on the next flight home. If they’re lucky."

In his X post, Blatter quoted Pieth and added, “I think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup."

The United States is co-hosting the World Cup with Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19.

The international soccer community’s concerns about the United States stem from Trump’s expansionist stance on Greenland, travel bans, and aggressive tactics towards migrants and immigration enforcement protestors in American cities, particularly Minneapolis.

Oke Göttlich, one of the vice presidents of the German soccer federation, told the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper in an interview on Friday that the time had come to seriously consider boycotting the World Cup.

Two weeks ago, travel plans for fans from two of Africa’s top soccer countries were disrupted when the Trump administration announced a ban that would effectively bar people from Senegal and Ivory Coast from following their teams unless they already have visas. Trump cited “screening and vetting deficiencies" as the main reason for the suspensions.

Fans from Iran and Haiti, two other countries that have qualified for the World Cup, will also be barred from entering the United States; they were included in the first iteration of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration.

(With AP Inputs)

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