An Italian top-tier club, owned by a national politician, signed a rich sponsorship deal with a highly controversial company that has been prohibited from operating in Italy. It happened in April 2026, when SS Lazio reached an agreement with Polymarket worth more than $22 million.

For these reasons, Polymarket has been banned from operating in at least 9 countries, including Australia, Brazil, France, Spain, and Switzerland. It has not been officially banned in Italy, but it doesn’t even have a license to operate legally in the country. In October 2025, Polymarket was blocked by ADM, the Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency; then, two months later, the block was removed, but the company was still forbidden from operating. Despite these clear ambiguities, in April Lazio decided to sign a partnership with Polymarket, maybe hoping that ADM would soon legalize the platform.

But this goes beyond football: Lazio president and owner, Claudio Lotito, is a senator for the center-right party Forza Italia, which is part of the governing coalition. It is heavily controversial that a member of the Italian government signs a commercial partnership between his company and another one that Italian institutions forbid from operating. Lotito is also one of the most influential people in the Lega Serie A, the organization that runs the Italian top football division: in May, Serie A announced a multi-year regional partnership with Polymarket in the United States.

On July 27, ADM again blocked Polymarket’s website, which is now inaccessible from Italy (unless using a VPN). Less than one month before the beginning of the 2026/27 Serie A season, Lazio is now without its main sponsor: the club removed every reference to Polymarket from its official website. The “Sponsors and Partners” section is empty, and on the online store, fans can buy the club’s jersey without Polymarket’s brand on it, unlike the jersey worn by players at the end of the last season. Yet, Lazio will still receive the payments stipulated in the agreement, according to Salvatore Palella of PalComm, the company that brokered the deal.

Awaiting Lotito’s move

Lotito’s controversial position on the Polymarket issue was told very well by Pietro Forti in its newsletter for Will Media. Forti wrote that, with this deal, Lotito “paved the way for the onslaught of prediction markets in Italy.” The Lazio president explained to Will Media that the agreement between Polymarket and Serie A came first, followed by the one with the Biancocelesti, and then he commented: «It’s 22 million, not tiny bits».

The real question now is whether Lotito will do anything to push the government to liberalize prediction markets in Italy, given his position in the Senate. It wouldn’t be the first time he has acted as a spokesperson for Serie A’s interests within the Meloni administration: he was the mastermind behind the approval of the Piracy Shield, a controversial anti-piracy platform created by Serie A to block the streaming of league matches on illegal sites, and whose use was legalized by Parliament in 2023.

Meanwhile, Lotito also has to contend with the growing protests from Lazio fans over the past few months, who want to force him to sell the club due to his poor management. The symbol of this protest is a kid who has become viral on Instagram and TikTok thanks to videos in which he says “Lotito, free Lazio!” every day in a different language of the world. But he doesn’t seem to want to sell the club right now; in fact, he has even bought a second one: Reggina, a team in Italy’s fourth tier, which he acquired in mid-August.

While Italian rules actually prohibit the same person from owning two clubs in the national professional leagues, Reggina is currently in the amateur ranks; should the team win promotion at the end of the coming season - as Lotito has promised - it would create a conflict with the regulations. But - again - this is not the first time it has happened: during the first half of the 2021/2022 season, Lotito owned two clubs in the same Serie A, Lazio and Salernitana, before being forced to sell the second one. Regarding this recurring issue, on July 20, Lotito described the current rules as «crazy,» hinting that he might take action in Parliament to persuade the FIGC (the Italian football body) to amend them.

It may sound strange, but FIFA is one of the most democratic institutions in the world. At least, on paper: it has 211 members (more than the IOC, more than the UN), and every member has one vote. There are no coalitions, majority bonuses, or proportional or majoritarian electoral systems. Of course, it is a modern liberal democracy ruled by interests, especially economic ones, and members do not represent the whole football world: only national associations have the right to vote; not players, coaches, or fans.

FIFA is clearly a democracy capable of improvement, but still a democracy. And yet, things have changed under the rule of Gianni Infantino, who has been president of the organization for ten years. He was first elected in 2016, defeating the president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, by 115 votes against 88 (Jordan Prince Ali bin Al Hussein also received 4 votes). From that moment on, Infantino has been re-elected twice (2019, 2023) without ever facing an opponent. And, on both occasions, no vote was held, and the election was by acclamation. Infantino chose the same system when he had to assign the 2030 and 2034 World Cups, in December 2024: only one candidate and a decision by acclamation, with member clapping their hands when the FIFA president called the name of the hosting country.

FIFA claims this system shows unity and cohesion: if there are no opponents, it means every member of the organization agrees with the candidate. But this is also a way to marginalize dissent: if there is no vote and delegates have just to clap their hands, it is almost impossible to identify those who disagree. Today, FIFA has been transformed into a single-party institution with non-transparent elections, reduced to a mere formality.

Joseph Blatter, Infantino’s predecessor, won five elections, but just two of them without opposition (2007, 2011) and always with a formal vote. If we want to find the true precursor of the current FIFA one-party rule, we have to look to João Havelange’s era: the Brazilian ran FIFA from 1974 to 1998, defeating Stanley Rous in his first election and then being continuously re-elected unopposed and, at least in 1994, by acclamation.

Learning from dictators

Yet, Infantino is the FIFA president who, more than any other, has engaged with authoritarian governments around the world. He wasn’t in charge when the World Cup in Russia and Qatar were assigned (it was Blatter, but he said he didn’t support the Qatar bid), but he embraced those events more than any other FIFA president would have done.

In 2017, he signed the first partnership between FIFA and Qatar Airways. Two years later, he received the Russian Order of Merit from Vladimir Putin. Then, Infantino awarded the 2026 World Cup to the United States (and Mexico and Canada - which, however, played a secondary role from the very beginning) during the first Trump administration. He schemed to bring the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, due to his close relationship with Mohammed bin Salman; he also signed a partnership with Aramco in 2024. Infantino repeatedly endorsed Donald Trump, and even gave him a controversial Peace Prize, assigned by a committee chaired by a man with deep connections with the Myanmar military junta.

The result of these questionable associations is evident in the way Infantino runs FIFA. In addition to limiting fair elections, he is undermining the possibility of making his government accountable, avoiding holding press conferences, speaking only to friendly journalists, and favoring influencers and content creators over journalists in event accreditations. To top it all off, he even engaged in what could be described as anti-union activity: in July 2025, FIFA announced to have reached a “consensus” about player rest and welfare rights, but ESPN found out that the international players’ union, FIFPro, was not even invited to the meeting.

Many believe that the 2027 FIFA presidential election could be the occasion to oppose Infantino’s rule by proposing for the first time an opposition candidate, but right now no one has stepped forward yet. Months before the beginning of the 2026 World Cup, the Swissman received support from more than 200 FIFA members, and it is unclear who might have sufficient interest and credibility to challenge him. As in many authoritarian countries, the real issue seems to be the succession of power, rather than the reform of institutions.

The key question has to be what FIFA is, in reality: is it an institution or a private company? If it is a private company, it’s obvious that only members have the right to vote, not the players (the workers of this industry) nor the fans (the customers). But FIFA also promotes itself as a non-profit institution, dedicated to the protection of a collective asset: in this case, it must accord appropriate political weight to all the “social classes” within its sphere that are affected by its decisions. Oddly enough, this issue remains extremely marginal in the debate surrounding the future of FIFA and global football.

It’s easy to link England v. Argentina in the World Cup semifinal to the Falkland-Malvinas War. More complicated is to discuss the ambiguities with which the Argentine government is handling this issue. Because since his election at the end of 2023, Javier Milei has held a contradictory position on the Falkland-Malvinas case.

Just an example from these very last hours: on Tuesday, Alejandra Monteoliva, Minister of National Security of Argentina, upheld FIFA’s ban on political symbols in stadiums, with explicit reference to flags and signs claiming the islands as Argentine. But, a few hours later, Vice President Victoria Villarruel wrote on X: «Tomorrow we will play against usurping pirates. It’s no longer a game. It’s the Malvinas, it’s Diego, it’s Leo’s last run, and it’s standing up to the invaders. Go Argentina! Because we will keep claiming what is ours until our very last breath!»

Villarruel made a clear reference to a popular song of the Argentine fans: «Por Malvinas, por el Diego, por la última de leo; Argentina quiero verte bicampeón!» This song became so popular that even the players chanted it after the win against Egypt in the Round of 16, and the video was published on the official account of the Argentine Football Association (AFA).

The Falkland-Malvinas Affair

The conflict over the islands is highly remembered in football for the quarter-final Argentina v. England in the 1986 World Cup: the South Americans’ victory, sparked by a brace from Maradona, instantly became a symbol of revenge for the 649 killed and 1,657 injured during the 1982 war. Also, top-class Argentine midfielder Osvaldo Ardiles, one of the stars of the team of 1978, saw his career compromised by the war: in 1982 he was playing in England with Tottenham, and his support of the Argentine military attack received great criticism, resulting in his transfer to PSG, in France.

The war was started by the military junta, which hoped for an easy win, thanks to the political support of the US that could improve the regime’s declining popular support. General Leopoldo Galtieri was well aware that the Malvinas issue resonated deeply with the population, cutting across political lines. The conservatives saw it as a legitimate nationalistic claim, because the UK occupied the islands in 1833, forcing out the Argentine military garrison. The progressives saw it as a battle against foreign colonialism and imperialism.

After the end of the dictatorship, the Falkland-Malvinas issue became a popular topic, especially among the Argentine left, the Peronists, while the new local right preferred to avoid the subject as much as possible, wishing to maintain positive relations with other Western countries. Despite this, it remains an extremely sensitive topic across the national political spectrum, and Milei is aware of this.

Milei and the Malvinas

Because of the fact that Malvinas became a strong Peronist argument, Javier Milei has always tried to steer clear of it. In May 2024, interviewed by the BBC, he criticized the politicians who «beat their chests demanding sovereignty of the islands» and praised Margaret Thatcher, but then added that he will «not go to relinquish our sovereignty» over the Malvinas.

His is a difficult balancing act, because he knows that an open demand would irreparably damage his relationship with Nigel Farage, the British nationalist leader who aspires to become Prime Minister in 2029. But attacking the UK and the European countries has by now become a key strategy in the relationship between Donald Trump and the Old Continent, and currently, Milei’s political survival depends almost exclusively on the support of the US President.

Last April 24, Foreign Minister ⁠Pablo Quirno said in a statement that Argentina wanted «to resume bilateral negotiations ​with the ​United ⁠Kingdom that will allow for finding a peaceful and definitive ​solution to the sovereignty dispute.» A moderate stance, but too moderate for the Argentine opposition. At the same time, Milei shared Quirno’s words on X by saying: «The Malvinas were, are and will always be Argentine.»

This recent hardening of the Milei government’s stance on the islands is likely also due to its declining approval ratings. Recent polls show that 61% of the population disapprove of the government; so, appealing to sovereignty over the Malvinas is an attempt to regain the electorate’s favor. And the coincidence of the World Cup match against England provides the ideal opportunity to push this propaganda theme.

The next Argentine election will be in October 2024.

Ahead of the match between France and Morocco, sports outlets around the world highlighted the story of the talented 18-year-old midfielder of the African team, Ayyoub Bouaddi. He was born in Senlis, Northern France, and played for the Bleus youth teams until the end of March 2026; two months later, he made his debut for Morocco. Questions arise: does Bouaddi feel French because of where he was born and grew up, or does he feel Moroccan because of the national team he chose to represent?

But this is a tricky question. Like many others in the world, Bouaddi’s identity is more a mix of cultures than just a single one, and identity is not a quantitative concept: what does it mean to feel “more” Moroccan than French, or vice-versa? To choose what national sports team to play for doesn’t mean to swear allegiance to a country and its cultural heritage.

Many have emphasized that the 2026 World Cup had been a great showcase for diaspora players: 289 of 1248 (23%) athletes represented national teams from countries other than where they were born. As I wrote in an article published in the Italian newspaper Domani, almost half of the players involved in the World Cup were born and grew up in Europe, and the African teams were the ones with the most players born abroad: 108 out of 260 came from Europe. This shows an interesting flipping of the rhetoric of far-right parties: while they tell people that Africans are “invading” Europe, in football it’s clear that more and more European players are “invading” African national teams, “stealing” the jobs from local athletes.

But talking about Africans and Europeans is a bit simplistic. Cape Verde called up 26 players coming from 6 countries (on 3 continents) and speaking 5 different languages. Defender Roberto Lopes was born in Dublin to a Cape Verdean father and an Irish mother: he is both African and European, but it is hard to say that his European side is the same as the one of Jamiro Monteiro, who comes from Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, or of the one of Logan Costa, born in Saint-Denis, close to Paris.

Nationality Vs. Eligibility

Football, and sports in general, can show us the complexity and the contradictions of the idea of national identity, but they also lead us to mistakenly believe that it is an exclusive concept: being French precludes any other national affiliation. We know that, generally, one can have as many passports as one can, based on one’s origins and one’s life story: FIFA president Gianni Infantino is Swiss, Italian and Lebanese, thanks to the country he was born and grew up in, the country of origin of his parents, and the country of origin of his wife. But in sports you must represent just one country: if you have dual citizenship, you have to make a choice.

Most of the people use the word nationality in football, because everybody is used to doing so, but the correct word is eligibility: the state of meeting the necessary conditions to be called up by a national team. While nationality implies an exclusive concept (if you play for France, you are French, and you can’t be anything else), eligibility shifts the debate to a matter of regulations and not cultural identity: you declare that you want to play for a specific team, for which you meet the requirements. You can change your eligibility during your career on certain conditions, but this doesn’t mean anything regarding your passports and your identity.

This will become an increasingly relevant issue in the coming years because, while the number of players with dual citizenship is rising, cases of players with triple citizenship are also beginning to emerge. Moroccan defender Issa Diop was born and grew up in France to a Senegalese father and a Moroccan mother: he could have played for all three national teams.

The same situation applies to Spanish star Lamine Yamal, son of a Moroccan father and an Equatoguinean mother. It is interesting to note that the debate around Yamal’s eligibility for Morocco, revived these days by the president of the Moroccan FA, Fouzi Lekjaa, has completely erased her mother’s origins and the opportunity to play for Equatorial Guinea. A few days ago, when the Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla racially insulted French forward Kylian Mbappé, she called him «colonized Cameroonian,» erasing Mbappé’s mother’s Algerian heritage. It seems that national identity is usually regarded as a gender issue: the father’s origins prevail over the mother’s.

Adios to Nationalism?

The question is: is it still possible to talk about nations in a sport where players have multiple citizenship and can choose whom to play for based on issues that have only a marginal connection to cultural identity? Also, is it still possible to call these teams national, when the idea of nation is no longer their core?

Players choose which country to represent on the international level based also on criteria like the team’s competitiveness or their chances to play regularly. Riyad Mahrez, born and raised in France, opted for Algeria in 2014, when he was already 23 years old and had never received a call-up from the Blues. He’s clearly proud of his Algerian heritage, but if he had received a call-up from France earlier, would he have turned it down? A proud Algerian like Karim Benzema didn’t. The debate around Yamal excludes Equatorial Guinea because its team can’t have the same appeal as Spain and Morocco. Valentín Carboni was called up by Argentina at 19 years old to block any potential eligibility to play for Italy.

National football teams have started to behave more and more like professional clubs, focusing on global scouting and on their ability to convince young players to choose them over other teams. This phenomenon also involves a particular kind of economic migration: the one of the professional football players, who transfer to Europe and have children there (Pierre Lanfranchi and Matthew Taylor wrote an interesting book about this issue, Moving with the Ball: The Migration of Professional Footballers). Obtaining a European passport - by residence or marriage - can help their careers, so this is quite a common outcome, but it also implies that their children become European citizens too. And if they choose to follow the father’s path, they will have a dual citizenship opportunity. It is the case of the promising midfielder Nico Paz, born and raised in Spain because of his Argentinian father’s career.

This situation is not limited to inter-continental relationships, but it also involves players from the same area. Dutchman Dean Huijsen has lived in Spain since the age of 5, and he is now a defender for the Spanish team (although he was not called up for the World Cup), after having played for the Netherlands youth teams. Jamal Musiala plays for Germany, the country of his mother and where he was born, but his father is Nigerian, and between 7 and 16 years old he lived in England, representing the Three Lions at youth level. Even Carney Chukwuemeka represented England, the country where he was raised by his Nigerian parents, but then he chose to play for Austria at senior level because he was born in Eisenstadt.

These examples suggest that the idea of nation - meaning an ethno-cultural (and often implicitly biological) group of people with a homogeneous and immutable identity - no longer corresponds to the reality our societies have already adopted. We live in an era in which cultural identities (which we once would have termed national) are being renegotiated before our eyes, in an ongoing process of which football represents merely the tip of the iceberg. New hybrid identities are created, incorporating and blending diverse cultures and sensibilities: it is what François Jullien talks about in his There Is No Such Thing As Cultural Identity. Football could be the starting point for the end of nationalism, if we dare to learn from its lesson.

P.S. I wrote extensively about football and nationalism in my book, Il calcio è politica: Lo sport come antidoto al nazionalismo (Football is Politics: Sport as an Antidote to Nationalism), published by People in 2025. At the moment, it is available only in Italian.

The South Korean national football team landed in Incheon at 4 AM on June 29, hoping to avoid protests because of the unexpected elimination in the group stage of the World Cup. Yet, a large crowd of fans was there to greet them with boos and chants, especially against head coach Hong Myung-bo.

This was just the last chapter of a disastrous World Cup, which will certainly have consequences extending far beyond what usually happens after a sporting failure. The day before the team’s return, President Lee Jae-myung wrote on social media that he was “appalled” by the result of the World Cup, and explicitly accused Hong and the South Korean Football Association (KFA) of what happened.

«In the end, it has once again been proven that the choice of people is everything. If favoritism is prioritized over competence and an incompetent commander is appointed, the result is as predictable as fire burning,» said Lee. These are unusually harsh words from a head of state directed at sports institutions, yet in South Korea they do not seem at all exaggerated. Politics and power networks have been decisive for the performance of the national team at the World Cup. This story must start from the most hated man in the country right now, Hong Myung-bo.

From Hong to Hyundai

Hong has been a Korean football legend. He played in four World Cups and was a brilliant defender for Japanese and US teams, and in 2004 Pelé included his name in a list of the 125 best living footballers. But he was not so convincing as a coach, despite winning the bronze medal with the Under-23 national team in the 2012 London Olympics. Hong coached South Korea during the 2014 World Cup, finishing last in a group considered by many to be manageable, alongside Russia, Algeria, and Belgium.

So, how did he manage to come back on the bench in 2024? It was thanks to Chung Mong-gyu, the president of the KFA since 2013. He has been accused several times of running the Football Association as his own personal fiefdom, and of appointing the national team coaches without consulting the appropriate committee. The first protests regarding his actions arose when he hired Jürgen Klinsmann in 2023, but with Hong the situation was even worse.

Before coming back to the South Korean national team, Hong coached Ulsan HD between 2020 and 2024, winning the K League 1 in 2022 and 2023. Ulsan HD is one of the most important football clubs in South Korea, together with Jeonbuk Hyundai, and both are owned by the notorious Hyundai corporation, which is controlled by the Chung family. The founder, Chung Se-yung, was the father of Chung Mong-gyu, the president of the KFA. The family also controls Korean football: Chung Mong-joon, Chung Mong-gyu’s cousin, was already president of the KFA (and vice president of FIFA) between 1993 and 2009, meaning that the Chung family has controlled the KFA for 33 years.

The Political Battle

When Lee Jae-myung says that Hong Myung-bo has been hired based on favoritism, he is referring to his personal relationship with the Chung family. But the South Korean football crisis also has a more political background: Lee is a member of the centrist Democratic Party and won the election just one year ago, while the Chung family is traditionally leaning toward the conservatives, especially the far-right Liberty Party, which governed the country between 2007 and 2017. The aforementioned Chung Mong-joon even served as its chairman (2009-10) and ran two presidential campaigns (in 2002 and in 2012).

Since his election, Lee Jae-myung urged a reform of the chaebols, the large family conglomerates that control almost everything in South Korea, clashing with these companies, among which, of course, is Hyundai. A war with the chaebols would be difficult for the government to win, but attacking the Chung family and its friends for the way they managed football is completely different, and public opinion is keen to support it.

In November 2025, the Ministry of Sports accused Chung Mong-gyu of violating the KFA rules by appointing Klinsmann and Hong Myung-bo without the approval of the National Team Committee. This started a legal battle between the government and the KFA president, who ultimately had to announce his resignation after the World Cup. The poor performance of the national team led Lee Jae-myung to call for an official investigation into the way the KFA and the national team are managed, and Hong, facing pressure from the government, announced his resignation too.

The World Cup failure therefore became an excuse for the government to cause difficulties for the Chung family. Song Young-gil, one of the most prominent lawmakers of the Democratic Party, stated that «the greatest enemy of South Korean soccer is not the opposing team. It is the cartel, lack of principle, and the KFA refusing to bear any responsibility.» But Chung Mong-gyu and Hong Myung-bo are by now indefensible and, as written by The Korea Times, «rival political parties were united in their criticism of the KFA.»

If you are a football fan, there is a good chance that a football jersey will be a perfect gift for your birthday. But German Chancellor Friedrich Merz thought it could be a perfect gift for Donald Trump too: during the G7 meeting in France, on June 16, Merz donated to Trump a jersey of the Mannschaft, the men’s German national team, which is currently playing the World Cup in North America.

The US President is not a football fan - although he said he saw Pelé playing in New York when he was a young boy, even if Trump was 29 when the Brazilian signed for the NY Cosmos - but Merz must have thought that a shirt could be a gift certificate for a person who has done everything he can to monopolize football in the last year. The jersey had Trump’s name on the back and the number 47, because he is the 47th President of the United States; it remembers the jersey that Ipswich Town donated to Nigel Farage last March.

It was not a simple “late gift” for Trump’s 80th birthday, but also a means to re-establish diplomatic relations between the two countries. In 2025, relations between the US and the European Union have reached their lowest point in history, due to Trump’s tariffs and threats to Greenland. At that time, Merz and Trump had broken up, but the German Chancellor had always had an ambiguous relationship with the American President, alternating harsh criticism with attempts at rapprochement. Merz distanced himself from Trump because of the war in Iran, and then Trump replied by saying that the Chancellor «doesn’t know what he’s talking about.»

Despite this attack, Merz assured German public broadcaster ARD that he will «not give up on working» with Trump. This led James Angelos on Politico to explicitly accuse Merz of having as his only strategy that of telling Trump he is right, in order to try to curry favor with him. Merz’s international reputation quickly became that of a politician quite at Trump’s mercy, and worried about the possibility of antagonizing him, as seen in a sketch from Puppet Regime.

Germany is heavily relying on the US on a military level, and this could be a crucial factor in Merz’s behavior: Germany hosts more than 40 US military installations and over 38,000 US military personnel on its territory. That’s why Trump’s threat to remove US forces from Germany particularly worries the Berlin government. This close connection between the two countries also has a parallel effect in the sporting field; several US football players grew up in Germany because their parents were military personnel, such as Weston McKennie and Malik Tillman, called up for the World Cup.

At the last G7, all the European leaders tried to play nice with Trump, as confirmed by the New York Times, but Merz was the only one who brought him a birthday present, using football as a way to connect with Trump. This is not the first time he tried to get Trump’s approval by using gifts: in June 2025, Merz donated to the US President a copy of the birth certificate of Trump’s grandfather, who was born in Germany.

Merz likely believes he’s well-positioned to become Trump’s new best friend in Europe, following Orbán’s unexpected fall and before Farage’s possible rise to power in the UK (which, however, isn’t expected to happen before 2029). Furthermore, the G7 currently has two right-wing governments - Italy (Giorgia Meloni) and Japan (Sanae Takaichi) - both of which Trump doesn’t seem to hold in particularly high regard.

Yet the choice of a Mannschaft jersey leaves some perplexed. German football, in particular, has been the most critical of Trump in the world over the past year and a half. After his re-election, several Bundesliga clubs abandoned X over Elon Musk’s support for the MAGA campaign, and even at the beginning of 2026, there was heated discussion about whether to boycott the World Cup. That jersey in Trump’s hands, delivered by the head of the German government, looks like a hoax, even if it is not entirely clear who the main victim is.

The 2026 World Cup will be “a sportswashing bonanza,” declared last April the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA), a human rights coalition affiliated with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and Football Supporters Europe. The idea that this year’s World Cup is yet another example of sportswashing, following in the footsteps of the previous editions in Qatar and Russia, has become so widespread that it is now largely treated as an unquestionable fact. Yet, if we were to approach the issue critically, we would have to acknowledge that this is not entirely accurate. In fact, the reality may be the exact opposite.

Before proceeding, an important caveat is necessary: the human rights violations committed over the past year and a half by Donald Trump’s administration are undeniable, as is the visa chaos surrounding the World Cup, a direct consequence of the United States’ paranoid immigration policies. There is no denying that the tournament is surrounded by deeply troubling political developments, not least the bloody and senseless war in Iran. However, none of this is sufficient to justify applying the label of sportswashing. A second caveat is equally important. The term itself is ambiguous, oversimplified, and often carries a degree of ethnocentrism. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are said to engage in sportswashing, while Emmanuel Macron - one of the European leaders who has most actively used football to strengthen his personal brand - or Norway are generally described as practicing sports diplomacy, a far softer expression devoid of negative connotations. I have explored this issue in greater detail in some of my previous articles: here and here.

Sportswashing refers to the use of sport by a government - typically an authoritarian one - to improve its international image. The term was first used in 2015 by activist Rebecca Vincent to criticize Azerbaijan’s hosting of the European Games under the rule of Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijan was a wealthy but politically marginal country with an illiberal government accused of numerous human rights abuses. At the time, however, Aliyev’s regime was actively seeking to host major international sporting events in order to present its most favorable face to the world and downplay criticism of its policies. Of course, sportswashing predates the word itself: one of the earliest and most famous examples was the 1934 FIFA World Cup held in Fascist Italy.

Yet the concept of sportswashing does not fit the 2026 World Cup very well - at least not in the case of the United States, the tournament’s principal host nation. How can we argue that Trump’s America is attempting to present its most positive image to the world, especially in light of what happened during the week leading up to kickoff? The opposite seems far closer to the truth. The exclusion of numerous supporters, as well as sports officials, journalists, and even a referee, represents an unprecedented episode in World Cup history, and there is no plausible way to portray it in a positive light. To make matters worse, U.S. authorities have made themselves look increasingly ridiculous because of the bizarre justifications given for visa denials and delays. In the cases of Somali referee Omar Artan and Iraqi footballer Aymen Hussein - who was eventually admitted only after seven hours of questioning - there appear to have been extraordinary cases of mistaken identity. Meanwhile, Moroccan defender Zakaria El Ouahdi reportedly faced delays in obtaining a visa because of his father’s allegedly “suspicious” long beard.

The situation involving Iran is probably the one with the clearest motivations, but it is evident to everyone that the organizers’ treatment of the Asian team has been unacceptable. The United States first attacked Iran, committing what more than one hundred experts in international law have described as war crimes, and then began doing everything possible to undermine the Iranian team’s World Cup experience, even forcing it to relocate its training base to Mexico just days before its opening match. The Iranian regime has a deeply negative international reputation, including among people who are generally critical of Trump and the United States. Yet in recent months it has managed to gain a considerable amount of sympathy precisely because of the actions of the United States and Israel. The disgraceful treatment received by the Iranian national team, with FIFA’s complicity, has only reinforced this sentiment.

Thus, not only are the United States failing to improve their international image through the World Cup, but they are actually providing an unintended boost to the propaganda of their principal enemy. One could object that this is simply a failed attempt at sportswashing. It would not be the first time such a thing has happened: in 1980, Uruguay’s military regime organized the Mundialito with the obvious intention of gaining a propaganda advantage, only for the tournament to become an unexpected stage for popular protests that helped pave the way for the dictatorship’s downfall. Yet nothing Trump has done or said about the World Cup since returning to the White House suggests even the slightest desire to project a positive image of his administration.

Indeed, there are moments when one wonders whether, even beyond sport, Trump has any intention at all of appearing as a positive figure. At times, he almost seems to take pleasure in presenting himself as an exceptionally harsh, hostile, and angry character. His politics often resemble an outright celebration of cruelty. A striking example is the official portrait he chose to display in the White House alongside those of the other American presidents: the only one among the 47 presidential portraits featuring a face contorted into a grimace of hostility. In 2017, by contrast, he had posed for photographer Shealah Craighead with a dazzling, almost grotesquely broad smile. Eight years later, Trump chose to present an image of aggression and ill temper to the world, and there is therefore little reason to believe that he ever intended the World Cup to convey a different perception of himself.

What is probably beyond both the control and intentions of the United States is the increasingly ridiculous quality that this ostentatious display of harshness has acquired, something the visa chaos illustrates particularly well. Many believe that Trump looks to authoritarian rulers - if not outright dictators - as his political role models and aspires to emulate them. His problem, however, is that he is simply incapable of doing so. Without minimizing the brutality with which he has targeted Palestine, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, it should be obvious to everyone that what we are witnessing is little more than a pantomime of dictatorship. One of the defining characteristics of authoritarian regimes is order: the ability to organize and coherently mobilize the resources of the state. We saw this clearly during the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The defining traits of Trump’s United States, by contrast, are confusion, disorganization, inconsistency, and a complete inability to identify and pursue clear objectives. The war in Iran stands as a glaring example of all of this.

To speak of sportswashing implies the existence of a coherent strategy - something that neither Trump nor the United States appear to possess today. No one can clearly explain the deeper purpose behind hosting a World Cup (following last summer’s Club World Cup and preceding the 2028 Summer Olympic Games). Perhaps, however, there are no hidden motivations at all. The mega-event serves only to gratify the President’s ego, a man obsessively fascinated by himself and by the need to remain at the center of attention. Trump is a product of America’s own distortions: the child raised with the self-centered and grandiose belief that he could become anything in life, even President of the United States, without ever being taught what such a role demands in terms of responsibility, vision, and commitment. Being something matters more than doing something. In this sense, the World Cup serves Trump’s desire to be, without him having any real idea of what to do with the tournament itself.

So why do we still talk about sportswashing in this case? Because over the course of ten years, the term has drifted far beyond its original meaning and has largely been emptied of its original content, at least in journalistic discourse. Sportswashing has become a metaphor for something much simpler: the use of sport by countries whose governments we dislike. The implicitly central element in the way the term is now used in public debate is no longer its propagandistic purpose - the attempt to cleanse a country’s image through sport - but rather a moral judgment about the country itself.

You can also read this article in Italian on Pallonate in Faccia’s website: here.

To learn more about the political intrigues of the 2026 World Cup, purchase the Geopolitical Atlas of the World Cup written by Pallonate in Faccia: here.

«Will not allow them to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States,» said on Saturday, June 6, a US administration official about the issue of the visas for the Iranian national team. Since then, there has been a great deal of confusion surrounding the entry of Iranian players into the country where they will have to play their three World Cup group matches.

The relationship between Iran and the US has never been easy, but it has gotten significantly worse since the start of the US attacks on Iran on February 28 and the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Persian Gulf Pro League was suspended, and later the local players had to go to Türkiye to train before the start of the World Cup. They were supposed to be based in Tucson, Arizona, during the competition, but on May 25, FIFA approved the team switching its base to Tijuana, Mexico.

Who Was Denied a Visa

Iran football team delegation had to wait until June 5, six days before the beginning of the World Cup and ten days before its debut against New Zealand, to get the visas. Yet, not everybody in the delegation has been allowed inside the US: while players got a regular visa, 13 officials of the Iranian Football Association (FFIRI) were denied entry in the country. The US authorities said that only “necessary support” staff received a visa, but among the 14 people excluded are the FFIRI Secretary-General Hedayat Mombeini and Vice President Mehdi Mohammad Nabi.

According to other reports, FFIRI President Mehdi Taj has also been denied entry. It seems that the US authorities denied visas to all FFIRI officials who have been members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Taj had also been denied entry to the US at the end of 2025, on the occasion of the World Cup group draw, and then last April in Canada, where the FIFA Congress was held. The IRGC is considered a terrorist organization by several countries, including the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, the European Union, and Saudi Arabia.

How Will Iran Be Allowed to Travel for the Games

On Saturday, FARS News Agency, which is close to the IRGC, reported that Iranian ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, said the national team must enter America on the day of the match and return to Mexico immediately after, without having the possibility of spending the night in the country. The news was picked up by numerous international media, including Al Jazeera, but it seems not to be true.

Indeed, FARS also wrote that, according to their information, the visa issued for the Iranian national team «is not temporary and that the team members will travel to America the day before the matches.» This has also been confirmed by AmirMahdi Alavi, spokesperson for the FFIRI, to Hatam Shiralizadeh, an Iranian journalist who works for Tasnim News Agency, another media associated with the IRGC.

Even the FFIRI president Taj explained that the Iranian national team has been allowed to enter the US the day before every match and to stay overnight. His words have been reported in a video press conference shared on X by Tasnim: «The United States granted the Iranian national team permission to enter only one day before the matches. We ourselves cannot predict how far the US interference will go.»

The Real Issue: Journalists

Iranian players have been allowed to enter the US, together with some of FFIRI officials, and they will stay a night in the country before every match they have to play in the World Cup. Yet, several Iranian journalists won’t be able to do their jobs, following the team and the whole competition.

This is what has been denounced by the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) on June 5 in a letter sent to FIFA and published on AIPS website. «There are many cases: Iranian colleagues, African colleagues, some of whom have been given single entries, so if their team goes to play in Canada or Mexico and they follow it, they can no longer return to the States,» wrote AIPS president Gianni Merlo.

This kind of abuse is not limited to Iranian journalists, but also to those from other countries, particularly African ones, especially because of Trump’s 2025 travel bans. A deeply worrying case is that of long-time Iraq official photographer Talal Salah: in Saturday June 6, he was held for ten hours by US authorities at Chicago airport, and was eventually denied entry to the country, although he had a regular FIFA accreditation and a visa. According to French reporter Romain Molina, Salah was subjected to a body search as well as a search of his cell phone.

The 2026 World Cup is upon us, and it will be one of the most political and controversial editions ever. To help you navigate this messy sporting event, I wrote a geopolitical guide to the World Cup: you can easily find it on Amazon in an ebook version, and it is completely written in English. It is called 2026 World Cup: A Geopolitical Atlas.

Inside it, you will find 48 chapters, one for every national team qualified for the World Cup: these are short insights into the main political and economic issues affecting each country and how they relate to local football. From Trump’s takeover of global football to the ambitions of the next World Cup hosts Morocco and Saudi Arabia, from what’s left of Qatar 2022 to what is happening in Mexico, from the worrying rise of Nigel Farage in the UK to the new sportswashing project of Uzbekistan, and much more.

All you have to do is buy it, read it, and spread the word among your friends.

YOU CAN BUY 2026 WORLD CUP: A GEOPOLITICAL ATLAS HERE!

P.S. You don’t want to use Amazon? No problem! You can make a donation to me of at least $5.99 (or €5.00), write an email to pallonateinfaccia@gmail.com, and I will send you the book in pdf. You can make the donation via PayPal or GoFundMe: check here to see how.

People use to say that AS Roma is the club supported by the Italian capital left-wing, and local rival SS Lazio is supported by the right-wing. This was perhaps true until some time ago, but today the situation is very different: the ultras of both teams are now aligned with the far-right, and the Derby has become an opportunity for each to mutually claim to be the ‘true’ fascist team of Rome.

Before the last match, played on Sunday, May 17, AS Roma fans created a banner that said “Lazio fans are partisans” (“Laziale partigiano”, in Italian): being a partisan - that is, an anti-fascist fighter during the 1943-45 war - is considered an insult for them. The reference is to two different icons in Lazio history: Ivo Bitetti, son of one of the club’s founders, who was among the partisan who arrested Benito Mussolini when he was trying to escape Italy in April 1945; and Tommaso Maestrelli, coach of the Lazio team that won its first national title in 1974, who fought among the Italian partisans in the Balkans. Interestingly, one of Roma’s icons was also a partisan: Giacomo Losi was a young courier (staffetta) during the war, and later became the player with the most appearances for the Giallorossi before the arrival of Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi.

Fascism and Anti-Semitism Among Roman Football Fans

Anyone who follows Italian football knows that incidents of this type are now recurrent in the Rome Derby. In the previous game, on September 21, 2025, AS Roma ultras displayed a banned on their stands - the Curva Sud - that said “Laziale antifascista” (“Lazio fans are anti-fascist”). Another banner read: “Famiglia Bitetti, Caserta... 'Lazio e Libertà'. Non puoi nascondere la realtà!” (“Bitetti family, Caserta… ‘Lazio and Freedom’. You can’t hide the truth!”): it was a reference to Bitetti and the anti-fascist story of his family, but also to his origins from the city of Caserta, and therefore not of Rome. Lazio e Libertà is a fan group of SS Lazio born in 2020, made up of people who do not identify with the far-right ideals of the Biancocelesti ultras.

AS Roma ultras were saying that the truth is that SS Lazio is not a ‘true’ Roman football club, and that it’s not even a true Fascist club, unlike them. But SS Lazio ultras were no less, and on the same occasion they showed a banner that read: “Ivo Bitetti laziale disconosciuto” (“Ivo Bitetti Lazio fan disavowed”), distancing themselves from the anti-fascist founder of their club.

In July 2024, a writing had appeared on a wall near the AS Roma headquarters: “Curva Sud Romana - Forte, compatta e ariana” (“Roman Curva Sud - Strong, compact and Aryan”), signed with the logo of the Schutzstaffel (SS), with a Nazi swastika, and with a Celtic cross. In the previous April, stickers had been stuck around the Capital with Hitler and Mussolini in AS Roma jerseys, escorting Mr. Enrich, mascot of the Lazio ultras, to Auschwitz. A few days later, just before the Derby, Giallorossi ultras displayed a banner on the Corso Francia bridge, which said: “Laziale di nuovo sopra un treno” (“Lazio fan again on a train”), with a Star of David, in a clear reference to the deportations of the Jews.

During the match on November 6, 2022, SS Lazio fans chanted “Romanista ebreo” (“AS Roma fans are jews”) and “In sinagoga vai a pregare, ti farò sempre scappare, romanista vaff****lo!” (“Go to the synagogue to pray, I’ll always make you run away, Roma fan go f**k off!”). Other anti-Semitic chants by Biancocelesti ultras against their rivals were heard, for example, in the Derby on March 19, 2023, and on the same occasion a fan was photographed in the stands wearing a Lazio jersey with the name “Hitlerson” and the number 88 on the back (88 is a code reference to “Heil Hitler”). In October 2017, during a match between Lazio and Cagliari, some Biancocelesti ultras entered the Curva Sud, sticking stickers of Anne Frank with the AS Roma jersey.

When and How AS Roma and SS Lazio Ultras Became Fascists?

It’s difficult to say when precisely this story started, since the history of ultras groups is often difficult to reconstruct. SS Lazio was founded in 1900, long before the birth of Fascism in Italy, while AS Roma was clearly a Fascist project to create a football powerhouse in the Capital, in 1927. Since then, Lazio remained predominantly tied to the Roman bourgeoisie, while Roma achieved the status of a working-class club, gathering a larger fan base around it. In the Republican era, the Roman working class was predominantly left-wing (especially between the 1970s and the 1980s, when the Communist Party governed the city for a decade), but recently the far-right has increased its consensus, which has consequently influenced the Giallorossi fans as well.

It seems that SS Lazio fans were not particularly politically oriented until the end of the 1970s, with the birth of the ultras groups Eagles' Supporters (1977) and Gioventù Biancoazzurra (1978). But it is with the foundation of Irriducibili (1987) that Lazio would have its first explicitly Neo-fascist fan group, positioned in the Curva Nord of the Olympic Stadium. At the beginning of the 2010s, fan groups of the Curva Nord gathered under the signature Ultras Lazio, which is markedly far-right. But this doesn’t mean all Biancocelesti fans are right-wing, as shown by Lazio e Libertà’s experience. Journalist and Lazio fan Riccardo Cucchi explained a few years ago: «The vast majority of Lazio supporters have nothing to do with Fascism. Unfortunately, this unpleasant label is linked to a small but very vocal group of right-wing extremists.»

During the 1970s, at the dawn of the Italian ultras movement, the Curva Sud was populated by left-wing groups, such as Fedayn (founded in 1972) and C.U.C.S. (Commando Ultrà Curva Sud, founded in 1977). But C.U.C.S. split in 1987, and Fedayn have already declined during the 2000s, and have gradually become depoliticized as well. Yet, AS Roma ultras have never been entirely left-wing: in 1972 the Boys were born, but placing themselves in the Curva Nord. According to various reports, the AS Roma ultras environment has been dominated by the far-right since at least the mid-2000s: currently, one of the leader of the Curva Sud is Giuliano Castellino, a prominent figure of Forza Nuova (New Force), a Neo-fascist party. For several years, the Giallorossi ultras have been waving a large flag in the stands with the words “Roma marcia ancora” (“Rome still march”) written on it: a reference to the 1922 March on Rome, which led Mussolini and Fascism to power in Italy.

What are clubs doing to combat this phenomenon?

Despite a growing number of AS Roma and SS Lazio fans are not comfortable with the current political situation in the stands, the clubs are doing quite nothing to create a more positive environment during the matches. During the period in which the US businessman James Pallotta owned the club (2014-2020), Roma had adopted a fairly inclusive posture, sometimes taking a stand against the right-wing drifts of the ultras. The club condemned some incidents of racism by fans on social media, and in 2020 paid tribute to Willy Monteiro Duarte, a young supporter who was the victim of a racially motivated murder. Then, after the transfer of ownership to the Friedkin family, these positions became increasingly rare.

SS Lazio management lives a long-standing conflict with the Biancocelesti ultras, but for sportive motivations. After the episode of the Anne Frank stickers in 2017, the club decided to send the players onto the field in the next match wearing shirts with the words “No to anti-Semitism” written on them. In 2025, Lazio signed a collaboration with Maccabi Israel to fight anti-Semitic discriminations, but the deal has come under much criticism because of the genocide in Palestine, as it was an agreement with an Israeli organization. Apart from this, no action has ever been taken against the right-wing extremism present within the Lazio fan base. It is worth noting that the club’s owner and president, Claudio Lotito, is a senator from Forza Italia, one of the parties that make up Italy’s right-wing government.

The UEFA Conference League is considered the least prestigious of the European football competitions, reserved for the smallest and most marginal teams. Yet it hides stories of politics and sport that have nothing to envy those of the Champions League (which this year saw four teams with partnerships with Rwanda reach the semi-finals).

Political fans fighting against their clubs, an emerging US multi-club ownership, the team from a war zone, and the one controlled by a former Trump ambassador. These are the four political stories of the 2025/26 UEFA Conference League semi-finals: let’s take a closer look!

Rayo Vallecano: Pirates against the far-right

Rayo Vallecano’s fans, called Bukaneros (buccaneers, in Spanish), are between the best known left-wing ultras in football: Spanish journalist Quique Peinado wrote a book about them, ¡A las armas!: La relación entre un equipo, un barrio, un carácter y una ideología (‎Libros del K.O., 2016). Anti-fascists, pro-Palestine, anti-racists; in 2017, they forced their club to cancel the signing of Ukrainian forward Roman Zozulya, who was linked to far-right paramilitary groups fighting in Donbass.

Less known is that their most recent battle is against their own club’s board. Rayo’s owner is Spanish businessman Raúl Martín Presa, who is politically close to the far-right party VOX: during the COVID-19 pandemic, he invited to the stadium VOX leaders Santiago Abascal and Rocío Monasterio to watch a game, taking advantage of the fact that, with the limited capacity, the Bukaneros would not have been able to be present to contest them. There were other protests, in recent years, against the poor management of the youth and the women’s teams, whose players were often forced to live and train in terrible working conditions. In 2022, Presa hired Carlos Santiso to coach the women’s team, although it was known that, in a chat a few years earlier, Santiso had encouraged gang rape.

Presa’s behavior has also caused problems among the players: in October 2023, Argentinian midfielder Óscar Trejo resigned as captain because of the way the owner run the club. Last February, Rayo players and staff publicly denounced the poor working condition, such as uneven pitch (with consequent risk of injuries), neglected training facilities, no hot water in the showers, dirty premises. A LaLiga home game against Real Oviedo was cancelled three month ago due to the poor conditions of the playing field, sparking a protest by the Bukaneros in the streets of Vallecas, the Madrid neighborhood where the club is based.

Strasbourg fans against BlueCo multi-club ownership

A cumbersome owner is also Strasbourg’s problem. Traditionally considered a secondary club in French football, in June 2023 it was acquired by BlueCo, a US-based consortium led by Todd Boehly, which one year before had bought Chelsea. The new owner spent more than €100 million in two years to brought in promising players like Emanuel Emegha, Dilane Bakwa and Mamadou Sarr, and also talented Brazilian Andrey Santos on loan from Chelsea. In 2024-25, Strasbourg reached the 7th position in Ligue 1 and qualified for the Conference League. A wonderful story? Not really.

Last January, with the team again in 7th position in the table and fighting to get a place again in next season UEFA international competitions, Strasbourg has been deprived of its coach, Liam Rosenior, chosen by parent company Chelsea to replace Enzo Maresca. The previous summer, 19-year-old defender Mamadou Sarr had already been signed by Chelsea for €14 million, a figure likely lower than the player’s true market value. But these were just the straw that broke the camel’s back: French fans have never been happy with the connection with BlueCo, and the idea of ​​being Chelsea’s B-team has long caused a lot of discontent, which has only worsened in recent months.

«Strasbourg doesn't exist from the sporting point of view,» said supporter Alexandre Hummel to BBC Sports one month ago. Fans are protesting in the stadium and in the street against the US owner, and this led to the formation of an unusual alliance with Chelsea fans, who were also openly protesting Boehly. In mid-April, Strasbourg fans flew to London to take part in a demonstration against BlueCo alongside Chelsea fans.

Crystal Palace, the most Trumpist team in European football

In the last three seasons, Crystal Palace got a 10th-place finish in the Premier League, one FA Cup and a Community Shield, consecrating players like Michael Olise, Marc Guéhi, Eddie Nketiah, Jean-Philippe Mateta and Eberechi Eze. The club’s successes occurred under the management of controversial American businessman John Textor, who however sold his shares in the club to Woody Johnson in June 2025. Johnson is also the owner of the New York Jets in the NFL and, in 2022, tried to buy Chelsea from Roman Abramovich, but was outbid by Todd Boehly. Most of all, he is a strong supporter of Donald Trump, a long-time Republican Party donor, and former US Ambassador in the UK.

Johnson supported and endorsed politicians like George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. In 2016, he endorsed Jeb Bush in the Republican presidential primaries, but then shifted to Trump and became one of his most important fundraisers. He donated $1.5 million to the Trump campaign, and in June 2017, he was nominated Ambassador to the United Kingdom, although he had no previous diplomatic experience. Almost two years later, he wrote in the Daily Telegraph that health fears over chlorine-rinsed chicken were “myths”, supporting the deregulation of US food exports to Britain. In 2018, Johnson tried to lobby in favor of moving the British Open golf tournament to Turnberry Golf Resort in Scotland: the club is owned by Donald Trump, and hosting the event would have represented a lucrative earning opportunity for the US President.

Despite condemning the Capitol Hill attack, Woody Johnson remained a strong supporter of Trump, and in 2024 he was again one of the presidential campaign’s main donors. After the attempted assassination of Trump occurred in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, he wrote on X that «President Trump makes me proud to be an American.» The two may have different opinions on the war in Ukraine: Johnson supported numerous Ukrainian organizations and made donations to refugees, since his wife, former actress Suzanne Ircha, is of Ukrainian descent.

Shakthar Donetsk and the ambiguity behind the Donbas War

A secondary club in the Soviet era, Shakhtar has become the absolute dominator of the Ukrainian league over the past 25 years, winning 15 championships and establishing itself as a world-class club. Since 2014, with the breakup of the Donbas War, it had to leave Donetsk to play first in Lviv, then in Kharkiv and Kyiv, and once again in Lviv (but in UEFA competitions it is currently playing in Kraków, Poland). Meanwhile, the Donbas Arena, which opened in 2009 and cost $400 million, has been seriously damaged by the conflict.

Shakhtar has become a symbol of Ukraine’s fight against Russian invasion, but the political background of the man responsible for the club’s success is quite ambiguous. Rinat Akhmetov is the wealthiest man in Ukraine and has been running Shakhtar since 1996; he made a lot of donations to the army and the hospitals during the war, but before 2022, he was considered very close to Russian sympathizers. Between 2006 and 2012, he was a member of parliament for Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, and he was later accused by Euromaidan protesters of being a symbol of Russian influence in the country. In 2014, pro-Russian activist Pavel Gubarev claimed Akhmetov financed the separatist movement in Donbas, and in 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Shakhtar’s owner of being part of a Russian plan for a possible coup. Akhmetov denied both accusations.

There is also an obscure connection between Akhmetov and Donald Trump through Paul Manafort, who was the chairman of the first presidential campaign of the American tycoon. In 2019, it was revealed that Manafort gave to Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik polling data related to the 2016 Trump’s campaign, asking Kilimnik to pass the documents to Ukrainian politician Serhiy Lyovochkin and Akhmetov. The Shakhtar’s president denied also this accusation in an interview with the CNN, but his links with Manafort are indisputable. The American lobbyist met Akhmetov in 2004 and later helped him to reach Washington when the Ukrainian was charged with murder after the Orange Revolution. It was Akhmetov who introduced Manafort to Yanukovych. When Manafort was tried in the US for the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, federal prosecutors alleged that between 2010 and 2014, Manafort received more than $60 million from Akhmetov. The Ukrainian always justified himself by saying that it was a legitimate political consultancy, given Akhmetov’s role as a parliamentarian.

Imagine if one of the most historic clubs in your country, winner of the last four national championships, was about to disappear and be transferred 2,000 km away. That’s the situation Vancouver Whitecaps are facing in these days. The Canadian side was one the veteran clubs of the old NASL in the Seventies and won the North American title in 1979, with former Liverpool Bruce Grobbelaar, England international midfielder Alan Ball, and local hero Bob Lenarduzzi in the squad. After winning 4 Canadian Soccer League, 2 USL First Division and 5 Canadian Championship titles, the team risks now to be relocated in Las Vegas next year.

In recent weeks, fans launched a protest with the slogan “Save the Caps!” to avoid the transfer of the club in another city, while on April 27 The Athletic revealed a group of investors is discussing with the MLS, the North American top tier, to bring the franchise to Nevada (but sources told Phoenix is also a possibility). This would end a 32-years-old history, which may not seem like a big deal to the European fan, but by the standards of North American soccer is very significant.

Led by German star Thomas Müller, in 2025 the Whitecaps lived an amazing season, reaching their first MLS Play-offs’ final against Inter Miami and their first CONCACAF Champions Cup’s final, losing against Mexican Cruz Azul. And yet, the club is struggling: despite being the second strongest team in MLS, the Whitecaps are the least for revenue. Vancouver’s BC Place is the sixth-largest stadium in the league (54,500 seats) and the team has one of the highest attendance record in MLS, but it doesn’t owned the stadium, which is controlled by the Province of British Columbia. Last December, the City of Vancouver and the Whitecaps signed a MOU for a new stadium project, but the club’s CEO Axel Schuster warned that the agreement would not solve the problems.

Vancouver Whitecaps are an excellent club, from a sporting point of view, but in North American soccer, this is not enough. «The harsh reality is that the exhaustive growth of MLS is leaving the Vancouver Whitecaps behind,» wrote The Guardian. The club is not profitable enough, and for this reason it has been put up for sale as early as the end of 2024, but the change of ownership will lead to the team’s relocation to a city that offers greater commercial opportunities. This is something unthinkable in European football, but more frequent in American sports; yet, the last relocation in MLS history dates back to 2006, when AEG transferred the Earthquakes from San José to Texas, creating the Houston Dynamo. It was a similar story to the one of Vancouver: the owner’s plan to build a new stadium failed, and the relocation became the best option.

But, in the growing soccer environment in North America, it is not just the clubs that must be lucrative first and foremost: the players must be as well. The teams are now looking especially to players that can be popular on social and online media: highlights material, but not necessary international superstars like Lionel Messi and Son Heung-min. This is basically what MLS commissioner Don Garber said to Andrew Marchand: «We know what games are driving fan interest, through technology. We’re looking at how we can have people looking at our highlights. It’s affecting the players we’re signing. It’s affecting how we’re structuring our rosters,» Garber said.

In this way, the MLS aims to make soccer even more popular in the USA and to attract new fans, but also to increase its popularity internationally, compared to other leagues. Right now, five North American clubs are valued more than $1 billion, according to Sportico: New York City FC, Atlanta United, Los Angeles Galaxy, Los Angeles FC ad Inter Miami. And with the impetus of this summer’s World Cup, the potential of soccer in the USA is set to grow further. The question is: at what cost?

The USL, the second professional North American league, is also booming: club revenues are rapidly growing, and by 2028 the league wants to launch a new top tier, called USL Premier, and implement an unusual (for the American standards) promotion-and-relegation system. But, while the clubs get rich, the players enjoy very few rights and poor contracts: only on April 29th was a tentative agreement reached for the renewal of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), under better conditions than in the past. This was only possible after nearly two months of protests by the players, supported by the fans.

In this new sports capitalistic dream, to fight back from below could be the only antidote for fans. It helped in the USL case, as it helped in 2017, when Anthony Precourt threatened to relocate Columbus Crew in Austin if he couldn’t build a new stadium: fans started a protest with the slogan “Save the Crew!” and in 2018 Precourt sold the club to Jimmy Haslam, who promised to keep the Crew in Ohio. Whitecaps fans are now trying to walk on the same path of the ones of Columbus, and the good thing is that other MLS fan groups joined the fight: relocations may be common in American sports, but soccer fan culture is entirely different from that of basketball, football, or baseball.

The US government is trying to lobby with FIFA to admit Italy to the 2026 World Cup, despite the national team has been eliminated last March by Bosnia-Herzegovina. On April 22, the Financial Times revealed that Trump’s envoy, Paolo Zampolli, wants to convince Gianni Infantino to bring Italy to the competition instead of Iran, whose participation is in serious doubt due to the war with the US.

The Financial Times wrote that Trump’s plan is to use football as a tool to make peace with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, after they clashed over the US President’s criticism of Pope Leo XIV. «I am shocked by her (Meloni, ed.). I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,» Trump said to the Corriere della Sera on April 14. But, if Trump hoped in this way to mend the rift with the Italian government, he made his calculations wrong.

Two leading figures in the Meloni administration have in fact clearly rejected the hypothesis of Italy being eligible for the World Cup. Giancarlo Giorgetti, the Minister of Economy and a politician with deep connections in Italian football, said that going to the tournament instead of Iran would be «shameful.» Andrea Abodi, the Minister of Sports, add that the proposed solution is «not possible» and «not appropriate.»

Why the Italian government doesn’t want the Azzurri to the 2026 World Cup

This idea by Trump and Zampolli seems to be based of a silly stereotype about Italian love for football, and no knowledge of what is currently happening in the Italian government. As I wrote in the first article of this newsletter, Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup represent a great political opportunity for the Meloni administration.

Abodi obtained the resignation of the federal president, Gabriele Gravina, his long time rival, and he is trying to maneuver his succession at the helm of the FIGC (the Italian Football Association). The government wants to promote long-needed reforms in Italian football, which fans have been clamoring for: in exchange, it hopes to gain significant electoral support (something it definitely needs). Giorgetti is also involved in this situation, as a great friend of Giuseppe Marotta, one of the most important football officials in Italy and currently president and CEO of FC Inter Milan.

Furthermore, accepting a possible automatic qualification for the World Cup following US lobbying would worsen the government’s reputation as a Trump puppy. According to YouGov surveys, in October 2025 Italy was by far the Western European country where Trump was more popular, but since then its approval has drastically reduced. Last February, Polling Europe Euroscope revealed that now Italy has the lowest approval rate for him (2.5) in all Europe. Italian football fans are also very disappointed by the national team’s results and they invoke radical changes: for this reasons, they also dislikes the idea that the Azzurri could be admitted to the World Cup without earning the qualification on the pitch.

If Trump hoped to use his admission to the World Cup as a sign of peace for Meloni, he was very wrong, or was seriously ill-advised. Now, the situation is that important government officials are rejecting the proposal with some rather harsh words. From all this affair, the US administration seems to be the one making the worst impression.

On April 5, international media reported that 7 players of Eritrean national football team escaped in South Africa, on their way back home after a trip to Eswatini. They played in Lobamba on March 31, winning 2-1 a decisive match to obtain the first access for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers after 19 years. After the match, the team reached South Africa, where it had to take a flight to Egypt, from where Eritrea would come back to Asmara, but 7 of the 24-selected players disappeared during the way.

However, it’s not the first time that something like this happens. According to the United Nations, during the past 20 years at least 80 Eritreans involved in football - including players, coaches and officials - have defected. In October 2019, 4 players of the U20 national team escaped after a win against Zanzibar in the junior CECAFA Cup, a tournament of the Eastern and Central Africa. Two month later, other 7 players defected to Uganda, after reaching the final of the senior CECAFA Cup. In January 2020, Eritrea played a friendly match against Sudan; then there was the COVID-19 break, but after that Eritrean football went into hiding for more than five years.

In 2023, Zemede Tekle, the commissioner for sports and culture, decided to retire the national team from the 2026 World Cup qualifier without explanation, but it was clear to everyone that Eritrean regime didn’t want to risk other defections. Eritrea lost its FIFA Ranking, having not played a match in the past 48 months. Then, in May 2025, it invited South Sudan in Asmara for playing two friendly match, in order to prepare the team to participate again in official tournaments. But, of course, not on home soil: Eritrea has no stadium that meets CAF requirements. So, the first leg against Eswatini (March 25) was played on the neutral venue of Meknes, in Morocco.

The harsh reality of Eritrean regime

Eritrea is ruled since 1993 by Isaias Afewerki, the former leader of EPLF (Eritrean People's Liberation Front), which in 1991 won the 30-years-long war of independence against Ethiopia. He promised democratic and social reforms, but in 1997 he failed to provide free elections, and started to strengthen his regime. No other parties except Afewerki’s PFDJ (People’s Front for Democracy and Justice) are allowed in the country; in 2001 he outlawed the private press, and in 2010 banned foreign journalists from entering Eritrea.

But the most notorious and controversial decision taken by the dictator is the law on the indefinite extension of military service: every man and woman between 18 and 50 years old have to serve in the army for a period of time theoretically of 18 months, but which is usually arbitrarily extended for several years. As denounced by Amnesty International, the government usually conscripts also children as young as 15 and 16 years old. While under the army, Eritrean citizens are often forced to carry out social work, such as building bridges or repairing roads, without being paid or receiving extremely low wages. The regime justifies this law with the threat of a new Ethiopian invasion, given that Addis Abeba wants to gain access to the Red Sea.

For football players, international away matches are a perfect chance to escape the reality of Afewerki’s regime, but every year tens of thousands of their compatriots try to leave the country. Eritrean-American cultural strategist wrote on Africa is a Country that almost one third of the population currently live in exile, but fleeing Eritrea is not easy: you risk to be shot at the border, or to be detained and tortured in Egypt, and then to be targeted by Eritrean propaganda as a traitor and an enemy of the country. «The government has agents and supporters everywhere, and our families remain at home,» said an anonymous exiled player to Al Jazeera, in 2023. «Very few of us discuss politics or even the national team openly because you don’t know who to trust, or who is listening. Footballers are not like other refugees. We are easily recognisable.»

Football and propaganda

Recently, something seems to have changed in the way Eritrean government looks at football. After the national team returned to play in May 2025, the Football Association ENFF signed the former Egyptian international defender Hesham Yakan as new coach on March 12, 2026. He is the sixth foreign coach in Eritrean history, and the first since the Dutch René Feller, who left the team in 2008.

He had few days to prepare the two-legs preliminary round for he 2027 AFCON qualification against Eswatini, so he ended up calling a squad of mostly foreign-based players: they were 14 out of 24. Most of them are sons of the Eritrean diaspora in Australia or in Europe, like midfielders Tesfaldet Tekie and Nahom Girmai Netanbay, playing in Sweden top tier respectively with Hammarby and Degerfors, or the promising 18-years- old striker Siem Eyob-Abraha, who plays in the youth team of Sheffield United. But there are also local players who have made their way to foreign clubs, such as Ali Sulieman of Kahraba Ismaila, in the Egyptian Premier League, who scored the two goals against Eswatini on March 31.

It might seem like a plan to promote local football at an international level, in a sort of Eritrean-style sportswashing, but the reality is different. «CAF and FIFA pressured the Eritrean FA to participate, because CAF was the only federation who has not every federation competing in the World Cup qualifiers,» says Daniel Solomon, who worked for the ENFF and now runs the project Eritrean Football on social media. «Another aspect is that if you don't participate, you don't get funds by FIFA: this also played a role.» Having a squad predominantly made up of players living abroad means that none of them need to flee Eritrea.

Afewerki’s regime has no interest in boosting Eritrean football: this is demonstrated by the fact that there is still no stadium in the country that meets the CAF requirements. Online you can find posts and videos claiming that Eritrea is building new modern stadiums (like here and here); one dates back to 2024 and tell that in one project is involved “the Italian company Shesta”, which does not exists. «These are regime affiliated pages: they are known for creating fake news,» explains Solomon. «Eritrea has problems to get 11 players together, how can they think of building a stadium like that? Eritrea has not a functioning airline and internet, no electricity for 24 hours.»

Afewerki’s outward propaganda, particularly towards the diaspora, is a little-known but growing phenomenon. As Petros told, numerous misinformation videos and posts are circulating on social media, focusing on tourism in Eritrea and illustrating the capital Asmara like a vintage destination. A curious contradiction, given that the same propaganda then tries to portray Eritrea as a country where cutting-edge stadiums are being built. But the reality is that of a country from which people are trying to escape at all costs. And football is fleeing too.

After being eliminated from the FIFA World Cup for the third consecutive time, Italian football hit rock bottom. At the moment, there is a lot of discussion in the country about systemic reforms that can no longer be postponed: on April 2nd, the president of FIGC (the Italian Football Association) Gabriele Gravina resigned, and the day after the same happened with the national team manager, Gennaro Gattuso.

This situation doesn’t concern just sports politics, but also national politics at its highest levels, up to the government. The right-wing administration led by Giorgia Meloni is facing a harsh time: the close relationship with Trump, the energetic crisis triggered by the war in Iran, and the negative results on local economy are consuming the government’s consensus. A hard blow came with the unexpected defeat in the March 23 referendum, the first defeat since Meloni took power in October 2022. Now, football can be a tool to regain the favor of the electorate: people are frustrated by the disappointing results of the national team, and are demanding change, of which the government wants to be the leader.

Meloni is not a strong football fan, but many of her colleagues in the majority are. One of the three parties composing the Italian government (Forza Italia, founded by former AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi) elected as a senator Claudio Lotito, owner and chairman of SS Lazio, one of the most important club in the Serie A, the Italian top division. The President of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, is from the same party of Meloni (Brothers of Italy) and he is a well-known supporter of FC Inter Milan. After the defeat against Bosnia-Herzegovina, La Russa was very vocal on criticizing Gattuso, also invoking a new rule to impose at least 4 Italian players for every Serie A team in every match.

But the flag bearer on the government in the football field is the Minister of Sports, Andrea Abodi, who already on April 1st, the day after the elimination, asked for Gravina’s resignation: «It is clear to everyone that Italian football needs to be rebuilt and that this process must begin with a renewal of the FIGC leadership,» he said. But this is not just football populism: between the Italian national government and the Italian FA there is a long-standing open conflict.

The Government Vs. the Football

Meloni administration didn’t really like Gravina. He never spoke about national politics, but he is considered close to the center-left opposition: in 2023, it was told that the Democratic Party (PD) and the 5 Stars Movement (M5S) had proposed to Gravina to run for Governor of Abruzzo, although he later declined. The now former FIGC president shares a friendship with Giovanni Legnini, former MP and senator with important roles in center-left governments, between 2013 and 2014.

Gravina and Abodi had a confrontation in May 2024, when Italian newspapers revealed a plan by the Minister of Sports to create a state-backed agency to control the financial accounts of the professional football clubs. Something similar already exists: the COVISOC (Supervisory Commission for Professional Football Clubs), which is independent by the government and controlled by the FIGC. When the news broke out, Gravina called an emergency meeting of the FA and obtained the support of Giovanni Malagò, the then president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), criticizing Abodi’s plan and claiming the autonomy of sport from national politics. «The problem is not the controls of the clubs, and the tool identified by the government is not a solution,» said Gravina.

Another strong enemy of Gravina is Claudio Lotito. On June 2025, after Italy was eliminated at the group stage of the European Championship, the president of SS Lazio told to the media: «Several coaches have changed, but the federal president has remained. If certain results repeat themselves, we must ask ourselves why.» They hate each other since Gravina was elected to the FIGC, in 2018: at that time, Lotito supported the other candidate, Cosimo Sibilia (former MP for Forza Italia). At the end of 2021, Gravina forced Lotito to sell Salernitana, a football club who reached Serie A that year, becoming the second team owned by Lotito in the Italian top division: a clear violation of the rules. The two fought again on various issues on Italian football, and in October 2023 Lotito publicly attacked Gravina, saying that: «People told me that the Democratic Party protects and defends the president of the Football Association.»

What the Italian government wants to do with football

The next step for the future of Italian football will be taken on June 22, with the new FIGC elections. This is not the solution Abodi wants, however: the Minister of Sports is trying to put the FA under the government administration. As explained by La Repubblica on April 3rd, if no candidate were to exceed 50% of the votes, the FIGC would find itself in a stalemate and the CONI would then have to appoint a commissioner (as already happened in 2018, before the election of Gravina). Abodi hopes to be able to direct the choice of this figure towards a man he trusts.

Surely not Giovanni Malagò, considered the favorite by the media: Malagò is supported by Gravina and he was a strong opponent of Abodi’s plan for a state regulator for football clubs. Another name is Giancarlo Abete, who was the president of the FIGC between 2007 and 2014, and is currently the head of National Amateur League (LND): between 1979 and 1992, he was MP for Christian Democracy party (now dissolved), but right now he has no public political affiliation. Abete opposed the idea of a government administration of the FIGC, meaning that he is not aligned with Abodi, and also he run the most powerful body in Italian football: LND elects 99 delegates to the FA Council out of 274, representing 34% of the votes to elect the president. For this reason, Lotito doesn’t like Abete: SS Lazio president is in the government to represent the interests of Serie A clubs, who want more decision-making power within the FIGC.

Recently, Abodi proposed Paolo Maldini’s name. An Italian football legend as a player, Maldini was technical director of AC Milan from 2019 to 2023, winning the Rossoneri’s last Scudetto, in 2022. But La Stampa wrote that the rest of the government did not appreciate Abodi’s proposal, which was described in an anonymous quote as «an unanimous rush forward.» Meanwhile, it seems that Lotito is also testing the waters in search of his own candidate, who could be another beloved former footballer, Juventus icon Alessandro Del Piero. There could be a chance even for Demetrio Albertini, former AC Milan midfielder who was Abete’s collaborator at the FIGC and is currently working as director of the FIGC Technical Sector. While little is known about Del Piero’s political positioning, it is known that Albertini is close to the center-right, which in 2015 considered him as a possible candidate for Mayor of Milan.

Finally, the consensus is growing around Giuseppe Marotta, the most influential sports director in Italian football of the last 15 years, currently president and CEO of FC Inter Milan. He has long friendships with three of the most prominent politicians of the League, a right-wing party in the governing coalition: Roberto Maroni, former MP, Minister, vice Prime Minister, and Governor of Lombardy (deceased in 2022); Attilio Fontana, current Governor of Lombardy; and Giancarlo Giorgetti, Minister of Economy. In recent years, Marotta has said several times that he is interested in a political role, but insists that he prefers a «technical role, without a party membership card.» Officially independent, but with an important sponsor within the government, Marotta could prove to be the ace in the hole of the Meloni administration to get its hands on football.