From visa bans and empty seats to late-night kick-offs, here are five controversies affecting the most ambitious World Cup in history.
Football’s biggest party was supposed to be the grandest ever staged. The 2026 FIFA World Cup, spread across 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, features 48 teams, 104 matches and what organisers promised would be the most-watched sporting event in human history. FIFA president Gianni Infantino boasted of sell-out crowds, record revenues and a tournament that would redefine the game globally.
But weeks before the opening whistle, a very different story is emerging. Tickets are going unsold at eye-watering prices. Referees are being turned back at borders. Players have been denied entry to the host nation. Gunshots have rattled cities that will welcome the world in days. And billions of fans across Africa, Asia and Europe are staring down the barrel of 3 am kick-offs.
Here are the five controversies that could cast a long shadow over the 2026 World Cup before a single ball has been kicked.
1. Poor ticket sales
In the days leading up to the tournament, more than 3,000 tickets for the United States’ opening match against Paraguay were still available on resale platforms alone, with official FIFA channels listing seats ranging from $1,120 to $2,735, the equivalent of several months’ rent in Los Angeles. Lesser-known fixtures were even worse: the Jordan versus Algeria match still had hundreds of unsold seats on FIFA’s website well into the final week.
The root cause is not a lack of interest. It is pricing that has simply priced ordinary fans out. FIFA initially sold the most expensive tickets at $6,730, already much higher than the roughly $1,600 price for the most expensive tickets at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, before the same category of tickets rose to $10,990 by later sales windows. A front-row seat in the lower bowl for the final costs more than $30,000.
2. Players denied entry into the US
The 2026 World Cup is the first in memory where a player’s ability to participate has been determined not by their footballing ability, but by their passport.
Switzerland’s Breel Embolo found his ESTA travel authorisation held under review just ten days before the start of the tournament, temporarily blocking his travel to the United States. The case drew immediate international attention and raised uncomfortable questions about how many others might face similar obstacles.
Iran’s football federation accused the United States of “vindictive behaviour” after visas were refused for key managerial and administrative members of its delegation. The federation’s secretary-general and vice president were among 14 backroom staff and officials without US visas ahead of games in Los Angeles and Seattle.
FIFA’s official position that host governments ultimately determine who enters their territory has drawn scorn from those who believe the governing body had years to negotiate binding guarantees of access before awarding the tournament to the United States.
3. Visa ban on Africa’s best referee
If the player visa situation was troubling, the treatment of a World Cup referee has been nothing short of scandalous.
Omar Abdulkadir Artan, the Somali official named the CAF Best Male Referee of 2025 and selected to officiate his first World Cup, arrived in Miami and was denied entry. He would have been the first-ever Somali World Cup official. FIFA confirmed that he “will be unable to train and officiate at the FIFA World Cup 2026 after he was denied entry into the United States.”
US Customs and Border Protection stated that Artan “was determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns” following additional inspection at the border. Despite assurances from a FIFA representative just days earlier that his visa issues had been fully resolved, he was turned back and has since returned to Istanbul.
FIFA finds itself in an indefensible position: able to promise the world a tournament, but unable to guarantee that the officials appointed to run it can get through the door.
4. Gun Violence
Days before the tournament began, two violent incidents in host cities shook the foundations of the World Cup’s security narrative.
Nine people sustained non-life-threatening injuries in a shooting near England’s World Cup base camp in Kansas City, Missouri, just 6.5 kilometres from Swope Soccer Village, where England are due to train. Hours later, six people were stabbed at New York’s Penn Station, the city’s busiest transport hub, as the metropolitan area prepared to host both the NBA Finals and the opening weekend of the World Cup.
The question being asked by fans and analysts alike is not whether something could go wrong, but whether it can be prevented in time.
5. Time difference ahead of fixtures
There is a version of the World Cup that exists in the imagination: fans gathered around screens, a 90-minute drama unfolding in real time, the game reaching its maximum global audience simultaneously. For hundreds of millions of supporters across Africa, Asia and Europe, the 2026 World Cup is not that version.
With matches spread across four North American time zones and 16 host cities, the 2026 World Cup has 13 different kick-off times. Fans in the United Kingdom face matches beginning as early as midnight and as late as 5 am BST, with as many as 35 group-stage matches kicking off between midnight and 5 am.
For fans in North Africa, including World Cup nations Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, most matches fall between 8 pm and 5 am local time. In South Africa, the window is 9 pm to 6 am. Fans in Senegal and Ghana can expect most games between 7 pm and 4 am.
With a record ten African nations at this World Cup, this is not a niche problem. It affects the continent’s largest football audience in history. For fans in Central Europe, kick-off slots range from 6 pm all the way through to 6 am CET, with some of the most anticipated fixtures falling in the deepest hours of the night.
The counterargument from FIFA is that 104 matches simply cannot all be placed in globally convenient slots. That is true. But it is also true that a tournament claiming to be the most global in history is asking billions of its most passionate supporters to set their alarms for 3 am or miss the games entirely.
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From visa bans and empty seats to late-night kick-offs, here are five controversies affecting the most ambitious World Cup in history.
The post 5 Controversies already affecting the 2026 World Cup appeared first on NotjustOk. Read More