Opinion

I've dedicated my career to soccer. I'm boycotting this World Cup.

(RNS) — A scholar specializing in soccer explains why he believes this World Cup is debasing the world's secular religion.

Fans celebrate during the announcement of the United States men's national soccer team roster, Tuesday, May 26, 2026, in New York, ahead of the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)

Kirk Bowman
June 1, 2026 
RNS

(RNS) — I have devoted my career to soccer. I teach a college course on Soccer & Global Politics. I’ve conducted research in 35 countries on the social dimensions of the people’s game. I truly believe soccer is the closest thing that the secular world has to a universal religion.

This summer, eight World Cup matches will be held in Atlanta, where I live, yet I am not going to any of the games. As much as it pains me, I’ve decided to boycott the 2026 Men’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

I am not a fervent FIFA critic, and I am looking forward to going to Brazil for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup. But I cannot in good conscience attend matches, watch matches on television or collect Panini stickers of the players this summer.



Here is why.

First, the world was promised it could come to these games — that is false.

On May 2, 2018, President Donald Trump wrote a letter to FIFA proclaiming that “all eligible athletes, officials and fans from all countries around the world would be able to enter the United States without discrimination.” FIFA President Gianni Infantino recently echoed that, saying, “America will welcome the world. Everyone who wants to come here to enjoy, to have fun and to celebrate the game will be able to do that.”

In fact, fans from Haiti and Iran are banned from entering the United States, and those from Algeria, Cape Verde, the Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tunisia have been de facto excluded by Kafkaesque, constantly changing, on-again-off-again impediments, including a $15,000-per-person bond program that was canceled too late for fans to make plans to attend the tournament.

According to a filing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, fans from 42 countries, including the UK, France, Germany and South Korea, are subject to five-year social media searches and may be arbitrarily denied entry into the United States. Human rights organizations warn these U.S. policies could also result in risks for racial profiling and arrest.

And for those allowed in, what exactly will they be asked to celebrate?

President Donald Trump puts on his FIFA Peace Prize medal awarded to him by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, right, before the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Early on, the Trump administration made threats to move venues from blue to red cities, and FIFA made a calculated decision to win over the president through constant adulation and sycophancy. This led to the surreal creation of the FIFA Peace Prize, which was awarded to President Trump at the FIFA 2026 World Cup group-stage draw in December 2025 at the Kennedy Center.

At the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup — the tournament FIFA uses to test facilities ahead of the World Cup itself — President Trump kept the original championship trophy, forcing the winner, Chelsea, to accept a replica. He also pilfered a medal reserved for the winning players. He awkwardly hovered over the awards ceremony, photo-bombing the champions’ photo and drawing side-eyes from Chelsea star Cole Palmer.

This scene was reminiscent of another ugly moment in the sport. In 1934, when the second FIFA World Cup was held in Italy, the phrase “Mussolini is always right” was plastered across walls throughout the country. The World Cup — known as ‘Mussolini’s World Cup’ — was a propaganda tool for glorifying Mussolini and for making Italy great again. He personally handed the championship trophy to the captain of the victorious Italians, and he delighted in the cheers and fascist salutes from the Italian players and fans.

I would like to think that if I were a soccer fan in Italy in 1934, I would have passed on that World Cup, too.

President Donald Trump holds the FIFA World Cup trophy during an announcement in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Ugly politics is not the only issue. FIFA is committing a red-card offense by treating fans as mere spectators to be exploited, rather than as partners and participants in creating the atmosphere and spectacle that characterize soccer competitions. Soccer fans are the twelfth player, bringing the chants, the imagery and the passion. Without the fans, especially the Argentines and Moroccans, the 2022 World Cup would have felt like the Disneyland World Cup.

The bright orange Dutch flash mobs, the Japanese Samurai Blue Ultras that entertain and clean up their section after the match, the choreographed celebrations of the Brazilians and the vibrant body painting of the Senegalese are as integral to the World Cup as the players.

FIFA is manipulating and deceiving fans by releasing batches of tickets in an opaque manner to create a sense of scarcity that artificially inflates ticket prices. While FIFA does have a responsibility to generate funds for its operations from the World Cup every four years, which in part are invested in grassroots initiatives around the world to develop the game, this needs to be balanced with an awareness that the most passionate fans of South Korea, Colombia or Germany are stakeholders and irreplaceable performers in the matches that are televised around the world. The matches played in empty stadiums during the COVID pandemic confirmed that truth: Televised games without enthusiastic fans are dreary affairs.

Many of the most enthusiastic fans are working class and effectively excluded by the sky-high prices in 2026 for tickets, parking, transportation and concessions. After an outcry from fans, FIFA created a new category with around 1,000 tickets for each of the 104 matches at $60 each to be allocated to the confederations for distribution to hard-core fans. That is not nearly enough.

Soccer is the people’s game, with a universal language and shared vernacular that cuts through class distinctions and unites people in a community of fervor for the game and faith in one’s team. The Infantino-Trump partnership is debasing it and the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.

Kirk Bowman at the 2024 UEFA Women’s Champions League Final at San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao, Spain. (Photo courtesy of Bowman)

And so, I am passing on the World Cup this year. I do not encourage others to make the same choice, nor do I judge those who choose to take part. I submit, however, that the spirit that makes the World Cup so special is now found in the women’s game. The tickets are affordable; Brazil will enthusiastically welcome all the teams and their fans; and the game will be used to applaud incredible players and teams, not politicians. I invite you to join me in 2027 for the beautiful game.

(Kirk Bowman is a professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. He is the author/editor of six books, including Soccer, Globalization and Innovation: The Beautiful Game in the 21st Century. The opinions expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

The US Supreme Court: Our Surrogate King for 223 Years

Richard W. Behan

June 1, 2026

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Photo by Tim Mossholder

A king is a study in absolutes. His word is final, the law of the land, and he is accountable to no one, possibly excepting God.

Isn’t that a credible description of our Supreme Court? Its word is final, the law of the land, and its justices serve for life, unaccountable even to the presidents who appoint them.

Limitless in power, totally isolated, the Court can inflict great harm to the nation. It has for example eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in two subsequent decisions, Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 and Louisiana v. Callais just this year. And now the former Confederate states are Jim-Crowing their black citizens all over again, kneecapping the impact of their votes. Discriminating against black voters in the South is once again, incontestably, the law of the land.

The Supreme Court can do such things by declaring laws or parts of laws to be unconstitutional and therefore invalid. The Court can do this because today it holds a power known as judicial review. It can tell the makers of laws—an elected Congress and an elected President—“You were wrong and we are right in saying so.”  How absolute is that?  Supreme Court justices were never elected, but they nullify laws emplaced by people who were. How anti-democratic is that?

This is not remotely what the Framers of the Constitution intended.

Article III Section 2 specifies what the Supreme Court can do. It functions all but exclusively with appellate jurisdiction. In street language that means the Court can do either of two things: it can uphold a lower court decision, or overturn it.  Nothing else. That’s it. The Court is empowered to sit in judgment of law cases. Nowhere is it empowered or even obliquely allowed to sit in judgment of the laws. The Constitution simply does not grant the Supreme Court the power of judicial review.

The Framers meant the Court to be subordinate.  In Federalist 78 Alexander Hamilton said this:

“The Judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of powers…it can never attack with success either of the other two [branches]…”

And in Federalist 81 he was explicit:

“…there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration [i.e. the Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution…”

 Today’s Supreme Court invalidates laws without a speck of Constitutional authority, and it has done so for 223 years.

That takes us back to 1803 and the infamous Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison.

Federalist President John Adams in the last days of his term appointed 16 new lower court judges—all of Federalist persuasion. Among them was one William Marbury. Their commissions were to be delivered by the Secretary of State, as specified in the Judiciary Act of 1789, but in the scurry of a departing Administration they were not. In March Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as President. Intending to appoint judges of his own party instead Jefferson ordered his Secretary of State James Madison not to deliver the commissions.  Marbury sued for his, citing the 1789 law. John Marshall’s Supreme Court found Madison guilty but—wait for it—also saw the Judiciary Act as slightly askew of the Constitution. It was the skinniest technicality, but on that basis the Court dismissed the case.

Chief Justice Marshall said in the Court’s written decision, “It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is…a law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” So said John Marshall, but nobody else, certainly not the writers of the Constitution.

Marshall’s Supreme Court claimed judicial review simply by fiat and vaulted from the weakest branch of federal governance eventually to kinglike supremecy.

Note where our Supreme Court is today: by neutering the Voting Rights Act (and, incidentally, encouraging gerrymandering) it is up to its enrobed necks in rigging the upcoming elections, the mid-terms and the general election in 2028.

Judicial review was initially benign. It wasn’t invoked again for 57 years, and might have remained tolerable had not the Court paired it with another irresponsible decision.

In the 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad the Supreme Court set a precedent with devastating consequences. It simply declared chartered corporations are persons as defined in the 14^th Amendment, with rights guaranteed by the Constitution: free speech, equal protection under the law, and others. By a technical error of the Court the precedent is legally flawed, but later Courts cited it anyway. And  now corporate personhood, prima facie preposterous, is the law of the land.

Think about corporate personhood for a moment. If corporations have Constitutional rights and if they can prove in court those rights are violated by a law, they can sue to have the law overturned. They can use judicial review as a weapon.

And after Santa Clara County they did.

The 14^th Amendment was meant to grant citizenship to black Americans, freed from enslavement by the Emancipation Proclamation, and to guarantee their equal treatment under the law. But now, after Santa Clara County, corporations became citizens, too.

377 cases based on the 14th Amendment were heard by the Supreme Court over the 27 years following Santa Clara County.  19 of them dealt with black Americans seeking equal protection. 288 were initiated by corporations claiming Constitutional rights—primarily to invalidate irksome laws.

As the centuries turned corporations succeeded in overturning minimum wage laws, child labor laws, laws limiting the workday, workmen’s compensation statutes, laws limiting corporate lobbying, and laws regulating utility companies. They sued for and won additional Constitutional rights, those granted by the 4th, and 5th Amendments—rights of privacy and the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Between 1905 and the mid-1930’s the Supreme Court found some 200 laws and regulations to be unconstitutional.

As the 20^th century progressed the toxicity grew. The caustic combination of judicial review and corporate personhood would prove in time to be fatal to democracy.       In a 1976 case, Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court found unconstitutional the 1910 Corrupt Practices Act. It placed parsimonious limits on how much political candidates could spend on their campaigns. No, the Court said, spending money is a form of free speech, and the Congress cannot “abridge” that right. Dollars are words? Isn’t that also prima facie preposterous? Two years later in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti the Court overturned the 1907 Tilman Act, prohibiting corporations from spending money on political campaigns—because corporations have free speech rights, too. In seeming contradiction a law limiting how much corporations could spend remained in place. (The law was FECA, the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972.)

In 2010 Citizens United v. FEC removed the contradiction. If corporations could not be restrained at all from spending for political purposes, then how much they spent was immaterial. Section 441b of FECA was unconstitutional. Out with it. Corporations can spend as much as they please.

But not to worry, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority:

“…independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption…..The appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in democracy.”   

Prima facie preposterous?

A tsunami of corporate money flooded expeditiously into the political campaigns of both parties (protected by the right of free speech) and lobbying activities as well (protected by the right of petition).

Corporations today outspend citizen interest groups in lobbying Congress and executive agencies by a factor of 86:1. In the 2024 election cycle corporations contributed 71% of the total of campaign donations, about $10.65 billion. Closely allied billionaires contributed another $2.85 billion, 19% of the total. Small individual donations came to $1.5 billion, about 10%.

By any measure, corporate citizens are the dominant influencers of federal governance today. Their financing of political campaigns renders elected officials into indentured servitude, amiably open to corporate requests. Then corporate lobbyists specify the details.

Public policy today routinely favors not the public interest, but the preferences of corporate America.

Oligarchs are commonly thought to be men and women of immense wealth with close ties to governments. We have those: Elon Musk gave $250 million to the Trump campaign in 2024. But the oligarchs dominating us today are corporate. It is not inaccurate to say our democracy was displaced by corporate oligarchy—after judicial review, after Santa Clara County, after Buckley, after Bellotti,after Citizens United. All thanks to a Supreme Court emulating royalty.

And then Donald Trump showed up, and overrode corporate oligarchy: Trump made himself a king.

The Supreme Court, the stand-in, stepped up to help. First the Court empowered Trump to ignore the rule of law: in Trump v. United States presidents became immune from prosecution for breaking laws while in office, if they do so in “official” actions. Then the Court fell into lockstep with the Republican Party, to tilt the elections of 2026 and 2028 to favor Donald Trump.

If Trump wins a third term, we will still have a king.

If he doesn’t, we’ll still have the stand-in.

This article is drawn from  a book the author is completing, The Triumph of Corporate Oligarchy: How It Defeated Democracy, Normalized Fraudulent Warfare, Devastated a Thriving Nation, and Brought Forth Donald Trump.

Richard W. Behan lives in Corvallis, Oregon. He can be reached at: richard.behan@icloud.com

LYSANDER SPOONER WOULD AGREE

Tyrant Trump’s Thunderous Corruption, Cruelty, and Lawbreaking

Ralph Nader

 June 1, 2026

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Give Dangerous Donald credit. Coming off the floor of his 2020 defeat, under several federal and state indictments, a convicted felon, accused by over sixty women of sexual abuse or worse, his endorsed candidates having lost in the 2022 elections, the Trump business brand wilting along with his polls, Trump displayed more vengeful energy and cunning than the entire feeble, defeatist Democratic Party apparatus. He roared back against all odds in 2024 as an elected dictator to implement his declaration that he “can do whatever I want as president.”

Trump’s wrecking, endangering, and weakening of America worsens by the day, as he doubles down and calls his critics “deranged,” “demented,” “wackos,” “weak,” “low-IQ,” “crazy,” and “treasonous.” Moreover, his vicious expletives expand by the day.

However, the Tide is finally turning against the failed gambling Czar and Netanyahu dittohead. Trump’s relentless greed is starting to undermine his dwindling support, despite his control of the Republican primaries. The headlines tell the story of his decline, and not just in the polls, with approval ratings down to 35%. The majority of Americans polled – nearing sixty percent – want him impeached and removed from office. This demand comes without the backing of the Democratic Party leadership, still skittish about mounting an Impeachment Drive. The case for Impeachment is aided and abetted daily by Trump’s outrages.

Let’s go to the revealing Headlines:

“Millions are Expected to Lose ACA Coverage” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026).

Due to Trump’s GOP ending subsidies.

“Fast-Moving Ebola Outbreak May Prove Difficult to Contain” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026). “People Will Die of Ebola Because of U.S. Cuts to Global Health” (New York Times, May 22, 2026).

Significantly due to Trump cutting USAID’s funding, monitoring, and disbanding critical expert teams.

“Mosque killings follow rise in anti-Islam voices” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026).

Led by chief Islamophobe, Donald Trump, from Day One in 2017.

“Trump’s Deal with Trump,” and “Prison to Pardons to Payouts: Rioters Rejoice” (New York Times, May 21, 2026). “I.R.S. Ordered to Drop Audits Against Trump as Part of Payout Deal” (New York Times, May 20, 2026).

Trump uses the government to reward his lawless supporters and wants to put himself above the law.

“Trump’s War is Punishing the Working Class” (New York Times, May 18, 2026).

Trump cares far more about the super-rich than the working class.

“EPA Wants to Repeal Limits on ‘Forever Chemicals’ in drinking water” (Washington Post, May 19, 2026), “Coal’s Comeback Fouls the Air With Resurgent Levels of Toxic Mercury” New York Times, May 13, 2026), “Chemical Board That Trump Wants to Remove Warns on Disaster Rules’ Rollback” (New York Times, May 18, 2026).

While a deadly chemical spill in California forces evacuation of 50,000 residents in Orange County.

“Trump Ramps UP Lawlessness on the Seas” (Washington Post, May 5, 2026).

Speaks for itself.

Now comes the headline, “A tough week for Trump on Capitol Hill, as Republicans deal him setbacks” (Washington Post, May 23, 2026) that must worry Trump. The $1.8 billion slush fund for violent, convicted felons and immunity for Trump and his extended family from IRS audits and enforcement proved too much for Trump lackey Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). At the same time, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a crook impeached by his own Party in the Texas House, an adulterer under suit by his wife for divorce (see the Post article of May 19, 2026) over former judge, Sen. John Cornyn, popular with the Senate GOP.  Earlier, Trump came out against Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), helping Cassidy lose the primary. To Thune and allies, a president coming out against his own incumbents is treachery.

So, the water in the Senate GOP’s cauldron may be starting to boil. They know about Nixon’s experience in 1974 coming off winning 49 out of 50 states in the 1972 election. With Nixon’s polls sinking after the Watergate scandal (a quaintly modest one-time crime, compared to Trump’s hundreds of continuing scandals), the Congressional GOP saw itself sinking in the 1974 elections. A delegation of GOP Senators went to the White House and told Nixon, “Mr. President, your time is up.” Nixon resigned days later.

One can envision something similar today. Trump is an unstable lame duck outlaw, including violating congressional authorities. Republicans have to face the voters in November. They are likely to lose the House. The Senate has 20 Republican Senators up for election compared to only 12 Democrats. They have a three-vote margin now. Trump, given his economy, his chosen wars, his unrestrained greed and self-enrichment, is making prospects of a Democratic win in the Senate more possible.

Had the Democrats not ceded half the states (the red states) to the Republicans decades ago, leaving behind remnants of their organized presence, almost all the Republican Senators running this year could be at risk. Instead, only about six have competitive races – thank you, obtuse Democratic Party.

In any event, most politicians, however servile they may have been to a President, prefer saving their own political skins to falling on their swords for an unpopular president losing his cognitive grip and voter sensitivity by the day. (See the April 30, 2026 statement from medical professionals in the Congressional Record – “Medical Concerns About President Donald J. Trump and His Fitness For Office.” Do you know any other president who would say “I don’t care about the financial condition of Americans” in the midst of surging inflation, rising food, health care, rental, and gasoline prices? A president who is using the White House to massively enrich himself and his family. (See Cashing in on the presidency: https://www.americanprogress.org/feature/trumps-take/).

Unless Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer open the Party to input from labor and advocacy groups to help sharpen a stronger, authentically advanced agenda (Compact for America, anyone?), the Democrats may eke out a 51 to 49 win, with erratic John Fetterman (D-PA) playing the role of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) as the swing vote. This will give the tie-breaking power to Vice President J.D. Vance.

One slim ray of hope: The Washington Post reported on May 17, 2026, that “House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) has directed the chamber’s Democratic policy committee to host listening sessions with members, with voters and with advocacy groups to inform a party-wide agenda…”

Even if you don’t believe Jeffries, rush through that open door with your proposals, as we will with the recommendations of 24 civic leaders (see winningamerica.net). My winning get-out-the-vote agenda is there as well. (See my column: “Somersaulting Voters: Stopping Rabid Gerrymandering,” May 15, 2026).

Contact Rep. Hakeem Jeffries – https://jeffries.house.gov/ / 202-225-5936.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!