A celebration of the most popular sport in the world can't be held in a country that commits genocide, ecocide, and daily state violence. The World Cup must not be held in the U.S.
Originally published in Black Alliance for Peace.
Statement By the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition & BAP Climate, Environment and Militarism Working Group
This Earth Day the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition declares that the United States and its Zionist partner have disqualified themselves from the community of civilized nations ā not only through genocide, domestic repression, and imperialist violence, but through the systematic ecological destruction of Africa and West Asia. The U.S. military is the single largest institutional polluter on the planet, leaving behind toxic bases, polluting equipment and munitions, and poisoned air and water across the globe. Beyond emissions and direct pollution, U.S.-led militarism enforces imperialist domination, as it dehumanizes and discards the colonized, working class, and āsurplusā populations by contaminating our ecosystems and poisoning our bodies. All the while, the U.S. evades accountability to international law.
In Gaza, Israel has waged ecocide as a weapon of war: tens of millions of tons of rubble have contaminated the soil and water, farmland has been razed, and the freshwater aquifer is now undrinkable. Across Africa, from the extraction of Congolese diamonds that fund the Israeli military to the destabilization of the Horn of Africa and Somalia to the gold and mineral resources that drive a UAE- backed genocide in Sudan, U.S.-Zionist imperialists drive deforestation, poison rivers, and displace entire communities. This is deliberate environmental and global class warfare.
The U.S. has āamericanizedā the beautiful game, providing a platform that enables and normalizes genocide and ecocide, within the U.S. and globally. The tournament itself will generate millions of tons of carbon emissions from stadium construction and air travel, while inside the United States, the policing apparatus that terrorizes Black, Brown, and migrant communities makes the country fundamentally unsafe for fans, players, and tournament personnel. Militarized ICE agents and state thugs can now routinely stop, detain, and disappear foreign nationals under the guise of immigration enforcement as racial profiling has become the way of law. No visiting fan from Africa, West Asia, or anywhere else can be assured of safety on U.S. soil. Therefore, the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition demands:
- FIFA immediately relocate all 2026 World Cup matches scheduled to take place in the United States.
- The international community, including teams, supporters, cultural workers, and civil society organizations, initiate a boycott of the United States as a host of international sporting events.
- International sporting institutions adopt non-selective accountability standards rooted in collective human rights and anti-colonial principles.
No whitewashing of US gangsterism and neo-fascist violence. No World Cup in a nation hostile to the People(s)-Centered Human Rights of our neighbors and family across the globe. No more poisoning our Earth. No peace under imperialist gangsterism and repression.
Before FIFA pretends this tournament is anything but a celebration of empire, we invite every antiāfascist, every climate defender, every supporter of Palestinian and African liberation to study the true geography of U.S. control. Explore our āMap of U.S. Militarization in Our Americasā every base, every training facility, every cop city and join the peoples war against U.S gangsterism.
Move the Games! Boycott the U.S.! No Compromise! No Retreat!
Endorse the Campaign to Move the Games from the U.S.: bit.ly/EndorseNow
Join the Global Network for the Advancement of People(s)-Centered Human Rights: bit.ly/GNPCHR
Zulu Sharod is Chairman of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party which is based in New Jersey.
Ali Abunimah is Director of electronicantifada.net, an independent online news publication and educational resource focusing on Palestine.
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