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How the US Has - Mostly - Avoided the Dark Side of the World Cup

This year's World Cup has largely avoided the stadium subsidies, forcible displacement of people, human rights violations, and other evils historically associated with the event.

Ilya Somin | 7.2.2026 11:06 AM

FIFA

Although I'm a big sports fan, I have long been critical of the Olympics and the World Cup for a variety of abuses, such as massive stadium subsidies that victimize taxpayers, forcible displacement of people in order to build stadiums, and providing a propaganda showcase for repressive authoritarian regimes, such as Russia and Qatar (hosts of the last two World Cups). Fortunately, this year's World Cup - co-hosted by Canada, the US, and Mexico - has mostly avoided these problems, at least when it comes to the United States. Though not quite entirely, as we shall see.  The key factors are that the US host cities used existing stadiums, and that strong protections for freedom of speech largely foreclosed the censorship and repression common in authoritarian host states.

Back in 2022, at the time of the last World Cup hosted by Qatar, I outlined several problems that needed to be fixed in order to avoid various evils associated with past World Cups and Olympic games. Let's see how the US has done on each one:

1. No public subsidies. Let the games be funded purely by private organizations and sponsors, as was largely the case for the successful 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. That way, no one has to........

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