The curtains have finally fallen on the world’s biggest sporting spectacle with a colourful celebration in New Jersey, USA. The 2010 World Champions, Spain, are yet again the winners of football’s ultimate prize in what was Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA’s) most profitable tournament by revenue. Millions of fans will remember the goals, the upsets and the celebrations.
But beneath the confetti and fireworks lies a tournament that exposed one uncomfortable truth: football does not unite the world nearly as much as FIFA wants us to believe.
FIFA expanded the tournament to a record 36 teams, giving more nations than ever before the opportunity to compete on football’s biggest stage. This meant that more and more countries got a shot at football’s biggest stage. For Africa, this was profound. This was a tournament to remember. Egypt reached the quarter-final for the first time in history. Cape Verde became the competition sensation, holding the eventual champions, Spain, to a scoreless draw; African football announced itself to the world.
Before every World Cup, FIFA requires host nations to guarantee that all accredited players, referees, and officials will be granted entry into the country. Those guarantees are supposed to make politics take a back seat so football can take center stage. Apparently, those guarantees come with an asterisk.
African teams and supporters faced a myriad of logistical bottlenecks to attend the competition, with visa delays and rejection topping the list of hindrances. Unfortunately, not every African got to make history on the world’s biggest stage. Out of the 11 countries that had a visa rejection rate of above 40%, more than half were African countries. The South African National team, Bafana Bafana, even had to arrive late due to an administrative bungle described by the South African Sports Minister as “embarrassing and grossly unfair” to the players.
Michel Kuka Mboladinga, the Democratic Republic of Congo superfan, who rose to prominence at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament in Morocco, was among the millions of fans who missed the opportunity to cheer on their team in the World Cup, having not been granted access to a USA visa. Senegal even got the short end of the stick. An entire fan base delegation, coming to cheer the Senegalese National Team, was barred from attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the U.S. due to visa rejections under a travel proclamation signed by President Donald Trump. This prevented the country’s dedicated supporters, including groups fully funded by the government, from traveling.
Furthermore, Africa’s best referee for the year 2025, Omar Artan, was deported back home after being denied entry into the United States by US Customs and Border Protection over vague vetting concerns, forcing him to miss the tournament. This denied the award-winning official his historic opportunity to become the first person from Somalia to referee at a World Cup
The point is this: what happened to FIFA’s promise that football unites the world?
The moment immigration law and domestic politics entered the conversation, FIFA disappeared. FIFA tells football federations what shirts they may wear, what slogans players may display and even which colours are permitted on armbands. Yet when accredited participants were denied entry to its own tournament, the organisation suddenly had nothing to say.
That should worry football fans, as it raises a simple question: who actually runs the World Cup? Is it FIFA, with its thousand pages of regulation and its endless speeches about unity? Or is it whichever powerful government happens to be hosting the tournament? If the 2026 World Cup is to go by, the answer is painfully obvious; the USA still calls the shots.
In all fairness, no country is expected to abandon its immigration laws or ignore genuine security concerns because FIFA is in town. Sovereignty does not stop at the stadium gates.
But FIFA cannot keep marketing football as a game that transcends politics while quietly accepting that politics decides who gets to participate. Those two positions cannot coexist. Perhaps the greatest irony of the tournament was watching FIFA roll a red carpet for US president Donald Trump while remaining conspicuously silent when the actions of the same government under his watch undermined the very principles FIFA claimed to stand for.
Spain may have lifted the trophy.
But Trump and politics won the tournament.
This article is republished from The Secularist under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill is a Kenyan writer and researcher with a strong interest in governance, human rights, law, and public policy. His work explores social, political, and cultural issues through research-driven analysis and commentary. He is passionate about promoting public engagement on issues affecting society, particularly youth, justice, and civic freedoms.
