Haiti qualified for the World Cup on the anniversary of its revolution, the DRC brought the spirit of Lumumba to the pitch, and Iran wore pins for children killed by U.S. bombs, proving that football cannot be separated from politics.
Football/soccer is a world sport of the poor and the working class, although at its highest levels, it is, like all sports, controlled by the ruling classes. It is played in the alleys of Sao Paulo and the dirt fields in Accra. It is clearly the most popular sport in the world. It therefore offers great opportunities to learn about various countries and people.
Because it is such an international working class sport, it offers opportunities for people from different countries and backgrounds to come together and learn from each other, all while they have the love of the game in common. It offers a time of celebration and national pride. Although football/soccer in the US reportedly had an original history of more working class roots, this apparently changed in the 1960s when it clearly became an elite suburban sport and far less popular than the big three: United States football, basketball and baseball.
This year’s World Cup is unique in several ways. It is the first time it allowed up to 48 teams to qualify and play in three different countries at the same time: the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. It's also the richest Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup ever, with FIFA’s projected revenue at $13 billion and increasing the total prize pool to a record $871 million.
It follows that this World Cup therefore had the highest ticket prices, out of reach for the masses of people. This World Cup is also the first time that each team earns $12.5 million just for qualifying and an additional $11 million for those teams that make it out of the first round of group play. This is also the first time 10 African teams qualified for the World Cup and the first time 9 of them made it through to the knockout round of 32, which means those teams earned an additional $11 million each. For many players and their families this is a great opportunity to increase their income dramatically since many, although not all, do not make huge salaries and come from working class families.
This is quite an accomplishment. Paradoxically, international sporting events also provide an excellent opportunity for protest statements to remind people that all is not well in the world, some of which we highlight here. Like all sports and cultural entertainment, football/soccer does not escape the influence of politics and race and class contradictions.
FIFA and its World Cup structure’s claim to be politically neutral has never been true since its founding. FIFA was founded in Paris in 1904 by colonial powers, and therefore always served colonial interests. The first FIFA World Cup tournament was hosted by Uruguay in 1930. The second WC was hosted in 1934 by the fascist Mussolini of Italy, the year before Italy attacked Ethiopia starting WWII.
FIFA, like the National Basketball Association, National Football League, and Major League Baseball, was founded by US/EU colonial imperialist big capital, so it's no surprise they have been controlled, corrupted, and exploitative since the beginning. With FIFA’s projected revenue at $13 billion, it should surprise no one that as long as there is big money involved in a world dominated by capitalism, it will never be politically neutral and will always favor the ruling classes. It will just reflect the same racist, classist contradictions as its parent countries’ US/EU imperialism and zionism.
If anyone still thought that FIFA was unbiased and politically neutral, this myth should have been smashed when FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, awarded Donald Trump a peace prize on December 5, 2025, for allegedly bringing peace to the world, including “between Israel and Palestine,” no less. Not to mention the unprecedented intervention by the host country’s president, Donald Trump, with Gianni Infantino, insisting on reversing a red-card penalty to benefit the US team.
“Sports washing” is the practice of using sporting events to improve the reputation of a government or company or individual by distracting from unethical conduct or controversies. This practice is not new to US/EU imperialism. Colonial, racist, capitalism always coopts its cultural products to serve its financial and ideological interests. In recent years, there are new sub-imperialist powers joining the “sports washing”. Increasingly significant influence via big capital from the Arab Gulf states, UAE , Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have had a large influence in international sports in recent decades.
These Gulf states, aside from sponsoring proxy wars, continue to have a malignant neo-colonial influence in Africa and western Asia. The Gulf Arab states already own at least a half dozen top-tier European football/ soccer teams worth hundreds of millions. If one ever wonders why it now also says “Fly Emirates" on the top of all NBA backboards and the NBA referees are now required to wear jerseys with an "Emirates" patch prominently displayed, it is a testament to this influence. We have to wonder, if it is a matter of time before the NBA finals, (for which ticket prices are just as expensive as the WC,) are played in Dubai?
Football/Soccer is part of the culture of many Global South countries, especially in Africa, the Caribbean and Central and South America where it is the number one sport played and enjoyed by the poor and working class masses. Cuba and Puerto Rico are exceptions in the Caribbean, and because of the history of US colonialism, they have gained popularity and expertise in baseball.
The colonial legacy also explains why we increasingly see people from former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, many of whom now have three and four generations born in these European countries. Most of the African-descended players on the European teams were born and grew up in Europe. Even many of the players from African and Caribbean teams were born or grew up in Europe. For example, in the only two Caribbean teams to qualify, Haiti and Curaçao, most of their players were born in France and the Netherlands, respectively. These players made a conscious decision to play for the country of their parents or grandparents.
It is interesting to note, for example, that the Netherlands team was composed mostly of players of African descent, most of whom have family ties to (former) Dutch Caribbean colonies such as Suriname, Curaçao, and Aruba. While it was quite remarkable that the Dutch decided to field a team with so many Black faces, the racist backlash they received on social media after some of them missed penalty kicks, causing their loss to Morocco, shows that the fight against racism in many European countries must continue. Haiti qualified for the World Cup on a historic date (November 18th), the Bataille de Vertières day (the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution), and resulted in Haiti’s first qualification in 52 years. According to reports the Haitian masses went wild with national pride and celebration. As well as the Cuarçao and Cape Verde teams, for which it was their first time qualifying in a World Cup. Similarly, the qualification of the team from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was their first time in 52 years and also a reason for the DRC masses to celebrate a time of national pride with an element of protest.
In spite of FIFA’s hypocrisy of claiming to be politically neutral, sports over politics, we highlight just a few of many examples of its duplicity. On one hand, FIFA and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) banned Russia from the 2022 and 2026 World Cups due to its invasion of Ukraine. On the other hand, it completely contradicts it self and turns a blind eye when Israel was permitted to play in the qualifying rounds for the World Cup in spite of the genocide committed against Palestinian people. FIFA and UEFA also turned a deaf ear to calls from UN experts to ban Israel for the genocide of Palestinians. Additionally, it must be said that not only did the zionist entity participate in World Cup qualifiers, reports indicate that over the past two years, but the Israeli army has also killed some 898 Palestinian athletes – including at least 420 footballers.
The fact that the US is the number one enabler of Israel’s genocidal crimes, and that it launched an unprovoked war against Iran three months before the start of the World Cup should be more than enough reason for the ban to extend to the US as well. However, these international organizations are all compromised and co-opted by Western imperialism. Thankfully, wherever there is oppression there is resistance, and there were examples of protest and resistance in the course of this World Cup.
In the World Cup, both Haitian and DRC teams showed symbolic expressions of militant protest, reminiscent of the Black Power fists displayed by John Carlos and Tommy Smith at the 1968 Olympics. The Haitian team initially had a team jersey depicting the Haitian Revolution, which was then ultimately barred by FIFA. The International Olympic Committee took the same action against Haiti’s team uniform during the 2026 Winter Games.
The DRC, like Haiti, had not qualified in 52 years, so it was quite an achievement to be able to participate and play in 2026, also generating national pride for DR Congo nationals. The militant pride of DR Congo was symbolized by no one better than Mr. Michel Nkuka Mboladinga also known as “Lumumba Vea” (Lumumba lives). Mr. Mboladinga started his support for DR Congo’s team during the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) games that started in December of 2025 when he would dress up and stand for 90 minutes in a statue-like position symbolizing Africa’s great anti-colonial hero Patrice Lumumba. He became the spiritual symbol of the team, giving them political spiritual inspiration to continue the struggle. DRC researcher, writer and member of Tricontinental Kambale Musavuli explained it best in an interview,... where he said:
This WC means a lot to the Congolese people; to put that in context, the last time we went to the WC was in 1974… Many are watching this game because their participation is uniting the Congolese people to demand more from their government. For us, it means a lot for Lumumba standing in a US game demanding that the assassination of 1961 be known and that the American people be held accountable for the assassination of Lumumba… This WC for us has two meanings; one, the spirit of Lumumba being revived amongst the players and amongst the fans. And two, that we will continue to push our government in the DRC to do the right thing by us, where the will of the Congolese people is heard and that they do not change the constitution for their own gains but that they look forward to a future where we control our own affairs, our land and resources.
We would be remiss if we didn’t highlight the courageous team of Iran who felt that it was important for them to participate in spite of the many unfair obstacles they were subjected to by the U.S. government.
The fact that they were prohibited from bringing their full support staff put them at a disadvantage. Also, they were banned from staying in the US in between their games, which required them to fly back and forth to Mexico, causing undue exhaustion. The Iranian team also made a political statement using the symbol of a child's book bag with the Iranian flag and the number 168 representing the number of children killed when the US bombed the girls' school in Minab, Iran, in February this year. The bookbag was carried by the players in a game against Nigeria before the World Cup, but when the team arrived in Mexico to start their WC journey, they all wore lapel pins with the number 168.
Similarly, the two smallest countries in the competition, Curaçao and Cape Verde, qualified for the first time. In the case of Curaçao, most of the team was born in the Netherlands (the Colonizing country). In the case of Cape Verde, the team that surprised everybody due to their quality of play, most players were born in the Netherlands as well as in Portugal (the Colonizing country).
As the World Cup nears an end, it will likely be remembered for many of these firsts as well as how teams performed and which team wins. However, learning and sharing the lessons of how imperialism attempts to co-opt culture, in this case sports, should be a priority. FIFA and US/ zionist imperialism sought to prevent the masses from expressing their own politics of resistance by insisting on the banning of any “political statements".
World Cup 2026 teaches us that mega sporting events have always been and continue to be an arena for class struggle, political education and protest in spite of the “rules” and hypocrisy of the ruling class.
Djibo Sobukwe is originally from the Dutch Caribbean, a retired educator, and a member of the Black Alliance for Peace.
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