Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Monday backed a proposed fan boycott of World Cup matches in the United States over the behavior of President Donald Trump and his administration at home and abroad.
Blatter was the latest international football figure to question the suitability of the United States as a host country.
He called for the boycott in a message on X that supported Mark Pieth’s comments last week in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Der Bund.
Pieth, a Swiss lawyer specializing in white-collar crime and an expert in combating corruption, chaired the independent governance committee’s oversight of FIFA reform a decade ago. Blatter was president of football’s world governing body from 1998 to 2015; he resigned amid a corruption investigation.
In his interview with Der Bund, Pieth said: “Considering everything we discussed, there is only one piece of advice for fans: stay away from the US! You will see it better on TV anyway. And upon arrival, fans should expect that if they don’t like the officials, they will be put straight on the next flight home. If they are lucky.”
In his X-post, Blatter quoted Pietha and added: “I think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup.”
The United States will host the World Cup together 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 toward Greenland, travel bans and aggressive tactics in dealing with migrants and anti-immigration enforcement protesters in U.S. cities, especially Minneapolis.
Oke Göttlich, one of the vice presidents of the German Football Federation, told the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper in an interview on Friday that the time had come seriously considering boycotting the World Cup.
Two weeks ago, travel plans for fans from two of Africa’s top soccer nations were thrown into disarray when the Trump administration took office announced a ban that would effectively prevent people from Senegal and Ivory Coast from following their teams unless they already have a visa. Trump quoted “screening and examination of shortcomings” 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 denied entry into the United States; they were included in the first version of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration.
