Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

The Anti Fascist Football Coalition Joins the Call for the Remaining Teams in the World Cup to Withdraw and Urges People of Conscience to Fight Back Against U.S. Fascism
Black Alliance For Peace
15 Jul 2026
🖨️ Print Article
FIFA protest

FIFA allowed a nation that commits genocide and runs detention gulags to host the World Cup, and the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition says staying in the tournament is no longer an option.

Originally published in Black Alliance for Peace.

On July 8, the Black Alliance for Peace called for the remaining teams in the World Cup to withdraw from the tournament to reject the lawlessness and impunity of the U.S. in its renewed active warfare against Iran, as well as the ongoing, illegal, and barbaric acts of genocide in Palestine and Lebanon. On July 9, the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition (AFFC), composed of 35 international organizations, joined the call with fervor. 

The AFFC is clear: The U.S. is the greatest violator of human rights on the planet. The reignited war on Iran is one atrocity among the dozens of war crimes the U.S. is waging globally. We cannot and will not normalize genocide and state violence by allowing the World Cup to uphold “business as usual.” 

“The renewal of hostilities against Iran, the persistence of Israel’s U.S.-backed bombardment of Lebanon during the so-called ceasefire, and Israel’s assassination of Mohammed Fawaz al-Wahidi moments before the Egypt-Argentina match are reasons enough for the remaining nations to withdraw from the tournament,” said Julio LĂłpez Torres, of Diaspora Pa’lante Collective. 

“Add to this, the violence being carried out by the Trump regime in the United States. In Houston, just three days after hosting a World Cup match, ICE agents murdered Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. In a city that hosted seven World Cup matches, including two knockout games, a man was executed for going to work. A country that still has colonial possessions, like the colonization of my country of Puerto Rico (which is used as a launching ground to wage war on the Caribbean and Latin America), was never worthy of hosting the beautiful game.”

Orlando Mateo, of Compas de la Diaspora, stated, “It is a disgrace that the imperialist, carceral-genocidal machine called the United States has been allowed to host the World Cup in the first place, given their role in the Gaza Holocaust. However, the recent aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as escalations in the domestic war against the immigrant proletariat – by way of increased deportation, inhumane conditions at detention centers, and cancellation of TPS for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians – plus the U.S. just hosted Israel for the World Baseball Classic! - all of that should prompt any free, conscious person, federation, state or fĂştbol player to retire from the rest of this sham tournament. Anything less than that is complicity.” 

The Anti-Fascist Football Coalition calls on organizations and individuals to collectively resist and fight back - to join in this call for concrete solidarity from the international community against the U.S. agenda for global domination at the ongoing expense of human life. The AFFC continues its commitment to Boycott the World Cup and Boycott the U.S., forcefully rejecting the ongoing devaluation of non-white life displayed by the U.S., FIFA, and its corporate ruling class partners. 

Join hundreds of organizations and individuals endorsing the Campaign for further coordinated action in our struggle for People(s)-Centered Human Rights: bit.ly/EndorseNow 

FIFA
World Cup
international crimes
Genocide
Iran
Anti-Fascist Football Coalition
Haiti
Temporary Protected Status
Immigration
Puerto Rico
football

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Berthony Dupont
What Is Happening to the Haitian Left?
16 September 2026
Responsibility for Haiti's deteriorating conditions does not rest on the Haitian masses.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
In the same boat?
09 September 2026
BOOM goes tuna and swordfish stuffed brown burlap bags aboardboats blown to smithereens. Presto! Fishing is now narco-trafficking.
Dhoruba bin-Wahad
Guardian Foray: All That's Not Real Is Camouflage
09 September 2026
An Open Letter from the American "Left" allegedly on behalf of unnamed persons said to be Iranian political prisoners has provided co
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
A People(s)-Centered Human Rights Critique of “An Open Letter to Iran’s Political Prisoners”
26 August 2026
A People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework rejects the liberal abstraction that makes a false symmetry between Iranian authoritarianism and U.
Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective
AISC Red Paper #2: The Multiple Fronts of Iranian Anti-Imperialism
26 August 2026
The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC) offers an analysis of the Ramadan War and the multiple fronts of Iranian anti- imperi
Luis Britto GarcĂ­a
Venezuela Is Not Iran
19 August 2026
Venezuela is not Iran or Cuba, but those nations teach us that sovereignty is not given but is obtained through resistance.
Ramzy Baroud
The Spark in Tell: How a Village Resistance Disrupted Israel’s West Bank Strategy
29 July 2026
Palestinians have the right to defend themselves under international law and they exercised it in the town of Tell on the West Bank. 
Bertin M. Louis, Jr.
Anti-Haitianism: A Hemispheric Rejection of Black Humanity
29 July 2026
From the United States to the Dominican Republic to the Bahamas, the violence, collective scapegoating, and mass deportation of Haitians lay ba
Sara Flounders
U.S. Government Terrorists Weaponize Subpoenas vs. the Left
29 July 2026
The House Ways and Means subpoenas against peace and justice organizations, paired with the State Department's designation of Cuba as the cente
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Bulletin on Domestic Militarism and Repression - Vol. 1 Issue #4
22 July 2026
The National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) reveals dangerous policies that many don't know exist.

More Stories


  • x
    Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor
    Iran, China, Fascism, and Boycotting FIFA
    05 Aug 2026
    Ajamu Baraka and Dimitri Lascaris join BettBeat media to interrogate the questions the anti-imperialists keep refusing to ask.
  • x
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    "Real Talk" from Kamala Harris on the Voting Rights Act Says the Quiet Part Out Loud
    04 Aug 2026
    The evisceration of the Voting Rights Act is of great concern to Black voters. But most of them are affiliated with the Democratic Party, whose leadership have no real interest in making it a…
  • x
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: “I, for one, know I’m a prisoner of War,” Herbert X. Blyden, 1973
    04 Aug 2026
    “I don't mean just in the struggles in these prisons. America is one whole concentration camp in and of itself.”
  • x
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Somalia: On the Front Lines with Somaliland
    04 Aug 2026
    "During the last week of July, I traveled to the front lines of Somalia’s unresolved border conflict with Somaliland, the Somali secessionist state now recognized by Israel but not by
  • x
    Anthony Rogers-Wright
    The Commodification of Social Justice: (Or, Saving the Data Center Subject from the Elite Capture of the Climate Industry)
    04 Aug 2026
    There is near unanimity of opinion against data centers in the U.S. But elitist and compromised environmental groups and the climate industry should not lead this fight. 
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us