2026 World Cup: Record attendance masks controversies in football's biggest tournament

Spain lifted the trophy at the end of football's largest tournament ever, and for the first time in history, a single nation's men's and women's teams held the World Cup simultaneously. Yet beneath the record-breaking attendance figures and the congratulatory messages from world leaders lay a tournament that exposed deep fractures in how the sport is governed, who gets to participate, and what the real cost of spectacle has become.

The 2026 World Cup, spread across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, drew 6.8 million spectators across 104 matches—more games, more fans, more money than any tournament before it. The fear that American stadiums would sit half-empty, given that soccer remains a secondary sport in the country, never materialized. Nearly every seat was filled, at least on paper: 99.7 percent occupancy, according to FIFA. Yet anyone watching the group stage matches saw the contradiction—plenty of empty chairs visible in the stands, a gap between the official count and what was actually happening on the ground.

The tournament delivered genuine surprises. Cape Verde, making their World Cup debut, held the eventual champions Spain to a scoreless draw and pushed Argentina to extra time before losing. Curaçao, the smallest nation ever to compete, scored their first World Cup goal and earned their first point. Paraguay knocked out Germany. These moments reminded viewers why the World Cup still matters—the possibility that any team, on any given day, might do something no one expected.

But the financial reality of attending was punishing. In American stadiums, a beer cost twenty dollars. French fries ran seventeen euros. Water was seven euros a bottle. In Mexico City, at the Azteca Stadium where the opening match was played, a beer cost the equivalent of about fifteen euros and fifty cents—nearly a full day's minimum wage. The tournament was expensive to watch, and expensive to be part of, which meant that for many people, it wasn't accessible at all.

The most visible controversy involved Donald Trump. The U.S. president had declared the tournament his personal prestige project, yet he stayed largely out of sight until the final. Then, after American forward Folarin Balogun received a red card, Trump successfully pressured FIFA President Gianni Infantino to overturn the automatic suspension. Balogun played in the round-of-16 match against Belgium, though it didn't matter—the United States lost 4-1. Sepp Blatter, Infantino's predecessor, called it a capitulation: "The current FIFA president has bowed to Donald Trump." The criticism didn't threaten Infantino's position. If anything, his authority seemed unshaken.

Security incidents in Mexico cast a shadow over the celebration. Fans stormed an overcrowded fan zone in Guadalajara. A car plowed into a crowd following a national team victory. Several people died during celebrations in Mexico City. Meanwhile, in the United States, a Somali referee named Omar Artan was denied entry despite holding a valid visa, with American authorities claiming he had ties to a terror organization in his home country. He will receive his World Cup salary anyway.

Human rights organizations gave FIFA failing marks. Immigration enforcement arrests doubled during the tournament, according to Amnesty International. Visa denials prevented fans from Africa and Asia from entering the country, even those holding valid tickets. "FIFA had promised that everyone could feel safe," said Daniel Norona of Amnesty International USA. "The truth is different." The organization's claim to have hosted "the most inclusive World Cup in history" rang hollow against the evidence.

Infantino has already begun discussing the next expansion: from 48 teams to 64, which would mean 128 matches instead of 104. More games mean more revenue to distribute to member nations—a fact that ensures his reelection in March 2027 and his continued leadership until 2031. The next World Cup will be spread across three continents, with matches in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina before moving to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. The machine keeps growing, the money keeps flowing, and the contradictions keep multiplying.