Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has endorsed calls for fans to boycott the 2026 World Cup over the United States and President Trump’s domestic and international policies, reports cityfm.com.
 
Swiss lawyer Mark Pieth, who was engaged to reform FIFA under Blatter’s administration, told the media last week that he advised against travelling to the States, which is staging the majority of this summer’s tournament, due to safety concerns.
 
Quoting Pieth, Blatter wrote on social media: “For the fans, there’s only one piece of advice: stay away from the USA!’ I think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup.”
 
Blatter, 89, has been a critic of his successor Gianni Infantino since his 17-year presidency became the biggest casualty of the FIFA corruption scandal that erupted in 2015.
 
Pieth’s comments, in an interview published on Thursday by Zurich-based newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, follow senior football figures in France and Germany urging European nations to consider pulling out over Trump’s attempts to seize Greenland from Denmark.

Scrutiny of the Trump administration escalated over the weekend following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti by immigration agents in Minneapolis.
 
“The country itself is in a state of tremendous turmoil,” Pieth said. “What we’re witnessing domestically – the marginalisation of political opponents, the abuses by immigration authorities, and so on – doesn’t exactly entice a fan to travel there.”
 
He added, “If a state has become a rogue state, it shouldn’t be allowed to host the World Cup. This is stipulated in FIFA’s statutes and also in its human rights code.
 
“The U.S. has also become a very aggressive international player that disregards rules. The US explicitly states: We don’t care about international law.”

Blatter received an eight-year ban over a payment to Michel Platini, then head of European football, but was last year definitively acquitted of any criminal wrongdoing.
 
He has criticised Infantino’s expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams and creation of the new Club World Cup, but said in 2024: “I don’t miss the presidency… I was like a missionary. And a missionary never gives up.”