On an idyllic spring day this year, diplomats gathered in the United Nations garden to kick around a soccer ball. In anticipation of the FIFA Men’s World Cup and in honor of U.N. World Football Day, they organized an informal soccer tournament, with teams representing Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America going head-to-head.
Trading their suits and ties for shorts and jerseys, many diplomats extolled the potential of sports to inspire cooperation. “Conflicts and wars are not solved by sports, but sports diplomacy is a very important thing,” said Ricklef Beutin, the U.N. ambassador for Germany, which hosted a beer-and-bratwurst party for the U.N. tournament. “Sports opens up minds and unites people.”
In June, the U.N. convened a serious meeting on sports diplomacy with business leaders and academics. Now, with the World Cup in full swing, diplomats are gathering for watch parties in the delegates’ lounge at U.N. headquarters, viewing games on screens sponsored by the U.S. mission.
Sports diplomacy is having a moment that in modern terms might be seen as a successor to the so-called ping-pong diplomacy that ushered in a thaw in U.S.-China relations in the 1970s—yet the concept is at least as old as the ancient Olympic Games. It’s usually seen as a form of “soft power,” a term coined by Joseph S. Nye Jr. in Foreign Policy that describes the ability to influence others through persuasion.
Glenn Cowan (right) of the United State shakes hands with Zhuang Zedong of China after getting off a bus for Chinese players at Aichi Prefecture Gymnasium during the 31st World Table Tennis Championships in Aichi, Japan, on April 4, 1971.The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
Modern sports diplomacy ranges from the personal diplomacy in the U.N. garden to closed-door summitry on the margins of games, such as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s meeting with Paraguayan President Santiago Peña on the sidelines of the World Cup match between their countries in Los Angeles on June 13.
Beneath that spotlight, though, this summer’s World Cup, co-hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, has exposed the limitations of soft power. Hard power continues to dictate the terms of the field—whether through the Trump administration’s stranglehold on entry visas for players, officials, and fans or through attempts at direct public diplomacy by FIFA, the sport’s global governing body.
The veneer of neutrality in global sports has been slipping for some time, as the rising toll of armed conflicts—at their highest level since World War II—has prompted a patchwork of curbs on free speech, boycotts, and bans. With hard-power military might and authoritarianism on the rise, it’s fair to ask: Has sports diplomacy hit a wall?
United Nations permanent representatives play in a mini-football tournament as part of the World Football Day celebration at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City on May 19.Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Countries invest time and resources in hosting events such as the World Cup or the Olympics—or, for that matter, the annual Eurovision song contest—in the belief that they will enhance their reputations. That makes U.S. President Donald Trump’s seemingly ambivalent attitude toward the World Cup hard to understand. Trump reportedly plans to present the trophy at tournament’s final in New Jersey on July 19, but so far, he hasn’t attended any of the U.S. national team’s matches.
Meanwhile, the U.S. opener against Paraguay became the most-watched soccer match broadcast on record in the United States, pulling in an average of 27.5 million viewers. Many Americans today might now disagree with the 1980s quip by former NFL quarterback and U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp that American “football is democratic capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport.”
On the one hand, the 2026 World Cup is the most international iteration ever. The number of countries in the tournament expanded from 32 to 48, and many of the teams are dominated by diaspora players. On the other hand, growing resistance to immigration—markedly but not exclusively within the United States—has made this year’s tournament one of the most exclusionary.
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An infographic featuring a simplified grey world map on a light beige background, scattered with numerous small brown dots indicating locations across various continents, heavily concentrated in Europe. Five professional soccer players are superimposed over the map, each positioned inside a white circular frame: An infographic featuring a simplified grey world map on a light beige background, scattered with numerous small brown dots indicating locations across various continents, heavily concentrated in Europe. Five professional soccer players are superimposed over the map, each positioned inside a white circular frame: The New Geography of the World Cup
Migration, colonial history, and elite academies have redefined today’s national teams.
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A person in skeleton face paint and black body paint celebrates with raised arms. They wear an elaborate headpiece featuring large green, white, and red ribbons, a red rose decoration, and two soccer balls styled into the hairdo with vibrant green braided extensions. In their right hand, they lift a gold trophy against a blurred outdoor background. A person in skeleton face paint and black body paint celebrates with raised arms. They wear an elaborate headpiece featuring large green, white, and red ribbons, a red rose decoration, and two soccer balls styled into the hairdo with vibrant green braided extensions. In their right hand, they lift a gold trophy against a blurred outdoor background. Mexico Could Be the World Cup’s Biggest Winner
As the United States closes itself off from the world, its co-host is doing the opposite.
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A man in a blue suit and white dress shirt kicks a soccer ball mid-air on a green grass field. In the background, a referee in a yellow shirt, a young boy in a red uniform, and another player in a red kit look on, alongside bystanders standing near a red tent and net structures. A man in a blue suit and white dress shirt kicks a soccer ball mid-air on a green grass field. In the background, a referee in a yellow shirt, a young boy in a red uniform, and another player in a red kit look on, alongside bystanders standing near a red tent and net structures. When the Beautiful Game Meets the Ugliest Ego
A recent history of the World Cup suggests the tournament can triumph over Trump.
Ironically, the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s were more accommodating. Decades before the term “sportswashing” was coined, Benito Mussolini rolled out the red carpet when fascist Italy hosted the 1934 World Cup. Nazi Germany emphasized that it would permit Black and Jewish foreign athletes to compete at the 1936 Berlin Olympics—in large part to avoid a growing boycott movement—and paved the way for American sprinter Jesse Owens’s remarkable achievements.
Nearly a century later, many people traveling to the World Cup have either been subjected to intrusive airport interrogations or denied entry to the United States. Omar Artan would have become the first Somali referee to officiate at a World Cup but was turned back at the Miami airport. Talal Salah, the Iraqi national team’s photographer, was denied entry in Chicago while Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was reportedly held for questioning for nearly seven hours.
Supporters of Somali international referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan hold flags and banners as they welcome him ahead of a solidarity football match after his return to Somalia from the United States, seen in Mogadishu, Somalia, on June 10.Hassan Ali Elmi/AFP via Getty Images
Hosting the World Cup tournament during the celebration of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence represents an extraordinary potential opportunity to show off the nation. Yet for some fans, their lasting impressions will be marked by U.S. hard power—the flexing of the country’s immigration regime.
Meanwhile, FIFA President Gianni Infantino often champions the slogan “Football Unites the World,” launched for the last men’s World Cup. Infantino may have viewed the much-ridiculed awarding of the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize to Trump as a necessary gesture to encourage the United States to ease travel restrictions. If that was his aim, then the results were a mixed bag: The United States waived the $15,000 bond on travelers from certain countries for team members, close associates, and certain ticket holders. But many fans were still turned away.
Infantino has also sought to cast himself as a quasi-statesman. In April, at FIFA’s annual congress in Vancouver, Canada, he tried to stage a reconciliation between Israeli and Palestinian soccer officials. Infantino may have hoped for a photo op; he also used the venue to announce his intent to seek reelection. Instead, he precipitated an awkward exchange when the Palestinian soccer chief refused to shake the hand of the vice president of Israel’s football association. The scene seemed only to underscore the intractability of the conflict.
Similarly, shortly before the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, officials from both North Korea and South Korea met in the demilitarized zone to formulate a plan for a unified Korean team. The South Korean women’s ice hockey team was obliged to add a dozen North Korean players to their 23-person squad at the last minute. The unified team lost all five of their games, and young South Koreans felt betrayed by a political stunt.
These incidents seem to suggest the ineptitude of sports diplomacy, and perhaps soft power itself, in today’s world. Yet traditional diplomacy hasn’t solved generational conflicts like this, either.
Unified Korea’s Lee Jingyu reacts after her team’s defeat in the women’s preliminary round ice hockey match against Japan during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games, seen at the Kwandong Hockey Centre in Gangneung, South Korea, on Feb. 14, 2018. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
State actors and sports leagues alike fall back on the tired refrain that sports should be apolitical. By their very nature, international competitions are intensely political arenas. Russia is particularly fond of raising this objection over competitive restrictions stemming from its war against Ukraine; to some degree, it has succeeded in watering them down.
The Olympics and the tennis Grand Slam circuit still allow Russian athletes to compete under a neutral flag. The International Chess Federation banned the Russian and Belarusian national teams from the Chess Olympiad in 2022; athletes from both countries still compete individually under the chess federation’s flag. Russia is also banned from Eurovision. (That put organizers in a bind this year, when several countries called for the exclusion of Israel—leading to boycotts.)
Russia was banned entirely from the World Cup after its invasion of Ukraine four years ago—but only after several European nations threatened to boycott the 2022 tournament in Qatar if Russia were allowed to compete.
When Moscow argues that sport should be apolitical, its critics point out that Russian President Vladimir Putin violated the Olympic truce that dates to the ancient games by using the force buildup for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, to seize Crimea. Likewise, Russia invaded Georgia during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine following the 2022 Winter Olympics, also held in Beijing.
Sporting associations also consistently position themselves as defenders of sports neutrality. The governing bodies may view limits on supposed political speech as necessary to secure favorable hosting arrangements, sponsorships, and the broadest swath of fans. Yet the act of defining what counts as a political symbol is also political in itself.
Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from this year’s Winter Olympics after refusing to remove a helmet decorated with images of Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed in Russia’s war on Ukraine. At the 2022 FIFA World Cup, seven European team captains planned to wear “One Love” armbands in support of the LGBTQ community. Then FIFA declared that players wearing the armbands would be hit with an immediate yellow card.
Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych during the men’s skeleton training at the Cortina Sliding Centre on day three of the 2026 Winter Olympics, seen in Veneto, Italy, on Feb. 9.
When the United States launched strikes in Iran months before hosting the World Cup, it marked an unparalleled occurrence since the first tournament in 1930. There have been rare instances when the host country didn’t recognize a qualifying nation. The most historically charged instance during the Cold War, for example, occurred when East Germany defeated West Germany in a group stage match on West German soil. West Germany went on to win the cup.
Yet the diplomatic complexities of Iran competing in the United States this summer were of a different order. This debate over political iconography was on full display during Iran’s matches on U.S. soil. FIFA announced a ban on spectators displaying Iran’s prerevolutionary flag, which has become a symbol of resistance to the Islamic Republic regime among the diaspora. The ban appears to have been lightly enforced.
However, when the Iranian national team emerged from a jet in Tijuana, Mexico, wearing lapel pins with the number “168,” a reference to the number of people killed in a U.S. strike on an Iranian girls’ primary school on Feb. 28, FIFA didn’t characterize the pins as political speech. Though this occurred far from any stadium, it raised questions about what constitutes an apolitical international sporting event, if such a thing is even possible.
The Iran team’s short, strange trip through the World Cup this summer will leave a lasting impact on the global public. Before being eliminated in the group stage, the team was forced to relocate its base to Mexico after the U.S. authorities limited the team’s time in-country before and after matches and denied entry visas to some team staff. It again reflected the soft power of sports diplomacy bumping up against the hard power of both military strikes and visa denials.
But the Trump administration’s approach had a bit of a boomerang effect. The Iranian team received a hero’s welcome in Mexico and tapped into a well of sympathy by highlighting the competitive disadvantage of having to fly out without a rest break after each match—ultimately deflecting criticism away from the Iranian regime.
Athletes are, of course, not inherently politicians. What makes sports diplomacy so unpredictable—and often thrilling to watch—is that it cannot be easily scripted. After all, the defining moment of the 1936 Berlin Olympics came when Owens mounted the podium to accept his fourth gold medal, challenging the Nazi party’s worldview without uttering a word.
Sports diplomacy can be inept or worse if misused by a malign actor. But it can also spark appreciation across cultures—just look at the enthusiasm for the bold leopard-print custom suits worn by the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s team on arrival, or the way that the Norwegian fan’s “Viking Row” has spilled out onto North American streets.
So, perhaps it is not yet the time to relegate sports diplomacy to another league simply because soft power hasn’t made a recent breakthrough against the coercion of hard power.
