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President Donald Trump's travel ban may test FIFA president Gianni Infantino's vision of a truly global 2026 World Cup.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s Wednesday proclamation restricting travel to the United States by people from a dozen countries will not apply to athletes competing at soccer’s 2026 World Cup or the 2028 Olympics, but could impact fans, friends and extended family of those athletes hoping to come to the U.S. for the hugely popular sporting events.
Trump’s travel ban, which will take effect Monday, applies to citizens of Iran, whose men’s national soccer team has already qualified for the upcoming World Cup, which will be held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico next summer.
But Section 4, subsection (b), paragraph (iv) of Wednesday’s proclamation grants “exceptions” to “any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State.”
The big unknown, sports immigration experts told Yahoo Sports, is how broad the State Department’s definitions of “major sporting event,” “necessary support role” and “immediate relatives” will be.
Experts expect that soccer’s 2025 Club World Cup — which does not feature a team from one of the 12 countries, but will feature a few players from those countries — will also qualify as a “major sporting event,” especially given the Trump administration’s strong relations with FIFA, soccer’s global governing body and the tournament’s organizer.
It is less clear whether the 2025 Gold Cup, a regional tournament that also begins in the U.S. the same day (June 14), will qualify for the exemption. If it doesn’t, the national team of Haiti — another of the 12 countries on Trump’s list — would be impacted. It is scheduled to face the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Trinidad and Tobago in Group D.
Spokespeople for the State Department, FIFA and CONCACAF — the North, Central American and Caribbean soccer confederation in charge of the Gold Cup — either did not immediately respond to questions or could not confirm whether their events were exempted.
The wording of the proclamation, experts pointed out, gives the State Department broad discretion to exempt certain events but apply the ban to others, based on any number of criteria or factors.
Some athletes looking to travel stateside for minor events — especially pre-professional tournaments or competitions — will likely be affected.
And fans will almost certainly be affected, the experts said. FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, have repeatedly claimed that “America will welcome the world — everyone who wants to come here to enjoy [the World Cup], to have fun, to celebrate the game, will be able to do that.” But there are no indications or expectations that fans will get special treatment from the consular officers responsible for issuing visitor visas. With the ban in place, thousands of Iranian fans could be denied entry and prevented from following their team at the tournament.
The other 11 countries on the banned list — Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen — have either been eliminated from World Cup qualification or are unlikely to qualify, though Sudan is in contention. But people from those countries could still be interested in visiting for the tournament.
Among the seven countries subject to partial travel restrictions — Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela — only Venezuela is in contention to qualify.
Many, if not all, of the 19 countries named will send athletes to the 2028 Olympics, which will be held in and around Los Angeles.
It’s unclear to what extent their support staff and extended family members might be impacted by the ban — which could, of course, be challenged or changed between now and 2026 or 2028.
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