You will not remainder this time from this policy. Sometimes you can't. Besides, football has been in history, not erstwhile and not twice, I've mirrored politics exactly. It could be again.
And all by precedent created in 2022, erstwhile FIFA under force – unfortunately – among others Polish, threw Russia's representation from its last consecutive elimination to the mundial and in general the federation from global games, and the Russian league from qualification to European club tournaments. Notabene, this ban continues to this day, although it is increasingly being questioned. At first, it was talked about abolishing it for youth representation, but the children's argument did not work either. Now, Gianni Infantino is even talking about Russia's return to football. Can he feel the writing with his nose?
Because there's more and more talk about the difficulty of playing the mundial. The group draw ceremony, powdered with an embarrassing performance performed by FIFA president, who gave Donald Trump a specially conceived “Peace Prize” for this purpose, had her forget about the problems for a moment, but the vain American president, actually has been complaining against the co-host of the tournament since the beginning of the year. He says – as if in a gag – about the annexation of Canada, and about the Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum speaks with contempt as a “cool female who does not rule”. Can it be assumed, under these conditions, that there will not be any pushovers over this mundial month?
There have not been many specified tournaments in history. One. erstwhile it happened, it aimed at warming the relation between hosts. In 2002, the championships in South Korea and Japan were a historical event due to the highly hard past of relations between these countries. And it worked then. but the gestures between Seoul and Tokyo were precisely the opposite. And today? It is even hard to take for granted that Mexico and Canada will last in the current forms for the inaugural match. Trump's ideas, after action in Venezuela, are no longer "fun". That's what we thought before. Now we must take into account that all day there may come to him any form of “solution”. For example, in the case of Alberta, where the US presidential administration is to support efforts for a "independent" referendum.
And the external problem. In the football world, it's truly starting to talk about a mutant boycott. There weren't many cases like this either. And they never stopped the Mundial (the celebrated Chile-ZSRR barrage after Pinochet's coup). We besides know 1 case of changing the championship host. In 1986, after many peripeties, Colombia withdrew from the organization, which was replaced by Mexico. But FIFA didn't take Colombia from the Mundial, but the authorities in Bogota gave it up. To be honest, it is besides hard to assume, especially under the leadership of Infantino, that FIFA should complain to the organizers. At most he will “take note” that the host is left with 1 because... Mexico and Canada are already parts of it.
However, returning to the external sources of the problem. Trump's policy in the first year of the second presidency caused so many different disappointments in the "Western world" that it besides drew quite a few declarations about "no arrival". For the time being, this applies to music bands and not necessarily the most popular ones, but it seems that any countries could usage football for specified pressure. After all, a tournament without the participation of European Union countries is no longer a planet championship, given the difference in levels. While the deficiency of Russians will someway be swallowed, the deficiency of French or Germans would origin the championship to be challenged as “canonical”.
How much can specified a script be achieved? So far, nothing truly points to him, although it is hard to deny the reality of the "escalation script". Anyway, in 2022 a can of Pandora was opened. But possibly this is part of a wider process of delegitization of global institutions. possibly in order to make new, more just, undominant “free world”, old ones must collapse? And possibly that's what Infantino wants to avoid erstwhile he demands Russia back?
Tomasz Jankowski
photo of the stadium in Philadelphia (wikipedia)
Think Poland, No. 7-8 (15-22.02.2026)