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The former FIFA president is urging fans to avoid the tournament due to concerns and security concerns.
Sepp Blatter, the former president of FIFA, expressed his support for fans who will not travel to the United States during the 2026 World Cup (which starts on June 11 to July 19) for security reasons, through a message posted on Monday on the social network X.
" For fans, just one piece of advice, avoid the United States! I think Mark Pith is right to question this World Cup ," wrote the former head of FIFA (1998-2015), citing excerpts from an interview with an anti-corruption lawyer that he gave to the Swiss newspaper "Tagesanzeiger".
" What we see domestically, the marginalization of political opponents, abuses by immigration authorities, etc., does not encourage fans to go there ," Pith said Thursday for the United States.
The Swiss lawyer, an expert in the fight against corruption and who was commissioned by Blatter between 2011 and 2014 to propose reforms for FIFA, is clearer a few paragraphs later.
" For fans, just one piece of advice, avoid the United States! However, you will see it better on TV. Once they arrive, fans should expect that if they do not behave properly with the authorities, they will be sent home immediately. If they are lucky ...", he predicted.
Blatter, now 89, a fierce critic of Gianni Infantino, the current FIFA president, who became his predecessor in 2015 when he resigned amid a series of scandals. Accused of fraud, among other things, Blatter, along with Michel Platini, were finally acquitted of the charges in 2025 by Swiss courts.
Faced with tensions stemming from the US's desire to annex Greenland and threats of increased tariffs against European states that oppose it, the first voices suggesting a boycott, or even cancellation, of the World Cup (hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada) are beginning to be heard in Europe.
Philippe Diallo, the president of the French Football Federation (FFF), however, declared in the pages of the daily newspaper “Ouest-France” on Sunday that there was “no intention on the part of the French Football Federation to boycott the World Cup in the United States .”
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