FLASH
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On Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, a police escort with Harley-Davidson motorcycles, sirens blaring and lights flashing, escorted a black SUV with tinted windows, worth about $200,000. A British tourist, speaking to The Telegraph, thought the vehicle was carrying US President Donald Trump. But the passenger was another important figure: FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
The scene summarizes the level of security, logistics and financial resources that accompany the head of world football during the 2026 World Cup.
Travel marathon in three countries
The 2026 World Cup has been presented as the biggest and most ambitious tournament in football history. Infantino himself seems to be acting in the same vein, having become one of the most prominent figures in the competition.
According to a report by The Guardian, the FIFA president aims to attend up to two matches a day, whenever the calendar allows. This is made possible thanks to a sponsorship deal between FIFA and Qatar Airways, which has made a private jet available to him at all times.
Four years ago, Infantino managed to attend all 64 matches of the World Cup, but then the maximum distance between stadiums was only 74 kilometers. The situation is different in the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with 16 stadiums and four different time zones. The distances between sports facilities reach up to 4,500 kilometers.
Infantino's itinerary
So far, the FIFA president's moves have been intense:
Day one: attending Mexico's opening match and then flying to Guadalajara for the South Korea-Czech Republic match.
Day two: trip to Los Angeles for the USA–Paraguay match.
The following days: stops in San Francisco and Vancouver to attend the Qatar–Switzerland and Australia–Turkey matches.
Sunday: participation in the FIFA institutional meeting in Miami with the 211 member federations and then a flight to Los Angeles for the debut of Iran, a team which he also visited in the locker room.
In just a few days, Infantino has traveled about 14,000 kilometers by plane. According to estimates, no one at this World Cup will travel more than him, not even the Bosnia-Herzegovina national team, considered one of the teams with the busiest itinerary due to matches in Toronto, Los Angeles and Seattle, which in total involve about 5,000 kilometers of travel.
Criticism about environmental impact
However, this high rate of travel has sparked intense debates over the environmental impact of tourism.
In addition to the considerable economic costs – where the logistics of presidential movements alone are estimated at between 400 and 800 thousand euros – at the center of the discussions is environmental sustainability.
The independent British institute New Weather Institute has named the 2026 World Cup as the most polluting sporting event in history, predicting total emissions of around 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. According to the report, the majority of this impact is related to air transport, which is estimated to generate around 7.7 million tonnes of CO₂.
French company Greenly has also concluded that flights account for 87 percent of the tournament's total emissions. In this context, Infantino's constant trips on his private jet have become the subject of criticism from environmentalists and social media users.
Contrast with the fans
While the FIFA president travels between cities by private jet and state-level security escort, fans face a completely different reality.
Ticket prices and travel costs have reached record levels. Experts estimate that following a national team to the final stages of the tournament requires a budget of tens of thousands of dollars for flights, accommodation and other expenses.
In some cases, even the families of football players have admitted that they have been forced to limit their movements within the host countries and choose more economical alternatives to attend the matches.
In this way, Gianni Infantino's multimillion-dollar trophy is becoming a symbol of the 2026 World Cup itself: a gigantic, spectacular and borderless competition, but at the same time one of the most elite, most expensive and most debated events in the history of football.
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