From Donald Trump pressing FIFA President Gianni Infantino to reverse Folarin Balogun’s red card, to controversial VAR calls against Egypt and Iran – there’s no shortage of incidents in the 2026 World Cup that remind the world of FIFA’s corruption, its alleged biases, and how politics cannot be removed from sports.
But the story goes much deeper than the surface of the pitch.
As we’ve shown throughout ‘The Dark Side of the World Cup’, authoritarian leaders like Trump have long used the tournament to sanitize their crimes and misdeeds. But in this final episode, we dive deep into FIFA’s own role in enabling that sanitization, and the major corruption scandals that have plagued the governing body and several of its now-notorious past presidents.
We also talk about how money rules the game. As political scientist and former footballer Jules Boykoff puts it:
“The World Cup is an opportunity for a privileged sliver of the global 1% to come together, meet in the luxury boxes, and cut deals with each other. That’s what the World Cup can often be about, not just the game on the field, but the game up in the luxury boxes.”
Join Mehdi, Jules, Global Affairs Columnist Ishaan Tharoor, and FIFA whistleblower Bonita Mersiades for a timely unpacking of the dark side of this incredibly cherished international tournament.
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Check out the other episodes from ‘The Dark Side of the World Cup’:
