The World Cup created a rare global community, then FIFA and Trump tried to turn it into advertising inventory, spectacle and political theatre.

At the beginning of the World Cup, I wrote optimistically about what football could still offer us. Watching Australians from vastly different backgrounds celebrate the Socceroos, I saw something larger than sporting success. I argued then that beneath the broadcasting rights, sponsorships and commercialisation remained something stubbornly human: people searching not simply for entertainment, but for connection.

The tournament largely vindicated that hope. Across six weeks, supporters carried their histories, songs, colours and identities into a shared space. Nations divided by language, religion, politics and conflict met under common rules. Smaller footballing countries were not merely permitted to attend; they were seen, heard and taken seriously. Once again, the World Cup created the experience its name promises: not simply an international competition, but a temporary gathering of the world.

That is why what followed felt like more than the familiar excesses of modern professional sport. FIFA had assembled an extraordinary global community. Yet as the tournament progressed, and particularly as the final approached, it became increasingly difficult to escape the sense that this community was being treated as a commercial asset. The audience had not merely gathered to watch football. It had been gathered, segmented and sold.

The World Cup brought the world together. FIFA then sold access to the crowd.

Staging the tournament across Canada, Mexico and the United States was presented as continental cooperation, and in one sense it was: three countries and 16 host........

© Pearls and Irritations