The World Cup is rigged
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the biggest in history. Forty-eight teams. Three host nations. More matches, more supporters and more countries than ever before.
But there is another way of looking at this tournament. Not through goals or tactics, but through access. Who gets to take part, and who finds the door closed before they even reach the stadium?
Long before kick-off, football collided with immigration policy. Iranian supporters faced uncertainty over travel, while FIFA revoked the Iranian federation's ticket allocation without public explanation. Ghanaian fans applied for Canadian visitor visas in large numbers, yet only a small proportion were approved. Elsewhere, players and officials encountered their own obstacles. Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was detained on arrival before eventually being allowed through. A Somali referee, despite holding valid travel documents, was reportedly turned back at the border.
For some teams, preparation meant training sessions and tactical meetings. For others, it also meant navigating visa applications, airport questioning and the possibility of being refused entry altogether.
The barriers did not end there. FIFA promoted a more inclusive tournament, yet many supporters found ticket prices far beyond what had originally been expected. Hydration breaks, introduced in response to the summer heat, have also prompted debate, with some researchers arguing the pauses are too short to provide meaningful cooling while creating additional opportunities for advertising.
None of these issues alone proves that football itself is unfair. Together, however, they raise a broader question. Can a tournament truly call itself global if borders, passports and wealth increasingly determine who can participate?
And yet the story of this World Cup is not simply one of exclusion.
African teams have delivered some of the tournament's most memorable performances. Nine reached the Round of 32, while Morocco once again demonstrated that its run in Qatar was no one-off. Cape Verde, making its World Cup debut, captured attention through the performances of its 40-year-old goalkeeper, whose displays became one of the defining stories of the competition.
That is the paradox of this World Cup. It has showcased the widest range of footballing talent the tournament has ever seen. But it has also exposed how uneven the road to the pitch can be. If the World Cup is meant to belong to the world, then participation must be about more than qualification alone.
World Reframed episode 43
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World Reframed is produced in London by Global South World, part of the Impactum Group. Its editors are Duncan Hooper and Ismail Akwei.
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This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
