Hosting the Men’s Fifa World Cup is supposed to be one of the biggest soft power wins a country can score. When Germany hosted the tournament in 2006, it did so under the official slogan “a time to make friends”. It sought to transform its global reputation for being serious and reserved, presenting itself as a welcoming host instead.
Two decades later, the 2006 World Cup is still cited as one of the clearest examples of a country using a sporting mega-event to improve how the world sees it. In fact, the atmosphere was so optimistic that the tournament is fondly remembered in Germany as the “Sommermärchen” (the summer fairy tale).
Developed by American political scientist Joseph Nye in 1990, soft power is the idea that a country can win influence abroad through attraction rather than force. A nation seen as open, fair and welcoming gains real advantages such as more trade, tourism and goodwill in international politics.
Sporting mega-events are one of the most effective tools for building this kind of image because they put a country in front of a global audience for weeks at a time. Millions of people form impressions about a country from what they see and experience directly. This is one of the main reasons the US, alongside co-hosts Canada and Mexico, wanted the 2026 World Cup.
Hosting the tournament was supposed to project a US that is open to the world. Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House’s World Cup taskforce, explained in a July 8 press conference that months of preparation had gone into ensuring millions of visitors experienced “the hospitality that only Americans can offer and provide”.
The World Cup was also a chance for the US to build goodwill and boost a global image that has undergone strain in recent years due to the war in Iran and the Trump administration’s verbal attacks on traditional US allies. However, a string of controversies look set to turn the tournament into a lesson in how soft power can fail.
Red cards and outrage
The most recent controversy came in early July when the US president, Donald Trump, personally called Fifa chief Gianni Infantino to request a review of a red card shown to US striker Folarin Balogun. This red card, which Balogun picked up in a knockout game against Bosnia and Herzegovina, should have resulted in an automatic one-match suspension.
But Fifa suspended the ban, allowing Balogun to play in the US national team’s ultimately unsuccessful last-16 tie against Belgium. This was an unprecedented decision. It sparked outrage worldwide and drew sharp criticism from European football’s governing body, Uefa. Many observers saw it as an example of political pressure shaping a sporting outcome.
Various other scandals had already occurred in the preceding weeks. Fifa-listed Somali referee Omar Artan was barred from entering the US over unspecified “vetting concerns”, despite holding valid documents. He was removed from the tournament altogether. Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was detained for seven hours at a Chicago airport before being allowed to continue his journey.
Visa restrictions, including a travel ban covering 39 countries, have stopped fansfrom several qualifying nations from attending matches. And Iran’s team was made to base itself in Tijuana, Mexico, rather than the US. The Iranians were required to leave the US immediately after each of their matches, prompting their coach Amir Ghalenoei to call them “the most oppressed team” in the tournament.
Each incident is likely to work against the welcoming image the US hoped to project. This is an example of what researchers call “soft disempowerment”, a concept first developed to explain the criticism Qatar received when it hosted the 2022 Men’s Fifa World Cup. It is used to describe what happens when a host country’s own conduct before and during a mega-event pushes people away rather than attracts them.
Reports of migrant worker deaths during stadium construction, as well as bribery allegations and a last-minute reversal on allowing alcohol in stadiums, harmed Qatar’s efforts to use the World Cup to boost its international image. Research from 2025 concluded that, while Qatar held a visually successful tournament, social media scrutiny caused a persistent negative shift in how global audiences perceived the country.
Lessons for future hosts
The implications of soft disempowerment reach well beyond the 2026 World Cup. A growing number of countries consider hosting sporting mega-events a central pillar of their long-term national strategy. These include Morocco, which is set to co-host the 2030 World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal, as well as Saudi Arabia where the following tournament will be staged in 2034.
Soft power through sport depends on a country delivering on the promises it makes to the people an event brings through its door. Where politics visibly overrides fair process, or where visitors are met with suspicion rather than welcome, the same visibility that makes sport such a powerful tool of soft power becomes the mechanism of its undoing.
For prospective hosts planning their own turn on this stage, the 2026 World Cup may prove to be a far more instructive case study in failure than success.
Written by Tariq Ashikhy
This article was originally published by The Conversation.
