Is the US-Iran war an ethical tipping point?

US President Donald Trump said Iran are still welcome to play in the 2026 football World Cup but maybe shouldn’t for their safety.

Iran have said the United States should be kicked out of the soccer tournament, which starts on 11 June, not them.

And FIFA President Gianni Infantino says the World Cup can bring people together.

There is nothing in the FIFA statutes against tournament hosts being at war. However, Article 3 of the governing body’s statutes do pledge to uphold international human rights standards.

Nevertheless, Infantino awarded the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize to Trump in December 2025 and was also at the launch of Trump’s Board of Peace. This despite Article 4 of the statutes “mandat[ing] neutrality regarding politics.”

Both Trump and Infantino “do as they please without serious commitment to the democratic principles of the organizations that they represent,” Alan Tomlinson, a professor at the University of Brighton in the UK, who specializes in the social history of sport and FIFA, told DW.

Iran war the tipping point?

The US’ decision to enter a conflict with Israel against Iran isn’t the first issue that causing fans to consider whether they should travel to the tournament, or if the games should even be played.

In the months before the war started on February 28, the actions of ICE agents rounding up migrants, travel bans on certain nationalities, visa hurdles and ticket pricing have led to numerous debates and concerns about the upcoming tournament. The games are spread over the US, Canada and Mexico, but 78 out of the 104 matches are being playing in the US.

Indeed, talk of a European boycott grew loud at the end of January in the midst of Trump’s threatened invasion of Greenland.

The question is, will the war in Iran prove a decisive moment for the 2026 World Cup?

“I don’t think Iran will be the tipping point, but maybe it should be,” Jake Wojtowicz told DW.

Wojtowicz is a researcher and author in the philosophy of sport and specializes in the ethics of sports fandom. Wojtowicz, who co-authored the book “Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan” in 2023, believes a lot of the conversation is about perception.

“In the West, America has a massive cultural impact, whereas [2022 World Cup host] Qatar is not culturally significant. So, when a nation comes along, and it’s going to get involved in the World Cup, and you find out that it does bad things that we aren’t used to, it’s easier to be critical. The United States does bad things, and we are used to it.”

Global sport is regularly confronted with ethical issues, as the last two football World Cups in Russia and Qatar respectively prove.

But is the US’ war with Iran creating a new dimension of thinking for all involved with the tournament?

“A host country at war, led by a political leader proud to accept a bogus Peace Prize, and now just months away from a five-week global sport spectacle, is without doubt a moral line that should not be crossed,” Tomlinson said. “But moral lines are not economic and commercial considerations.”

Wojtowicz has a similar view. “I think the problem slips in when you think this [the war in Iran] is a bad thing, and then you go to the World Cup or you watch the World Cup, and you think America’s pretty good actually,” Wojtowicz said.

“You start to think of the United States in terms of [England captain and striker] Harry Kane scoring two goals to sink Brazil in the final rather than thinking about ICE or the fact that citizens are getting deported. And that’s the worry, that the World Cup gets in the way of normal moral thinking.”

FIFA: The house of many truths

DW contacted both Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International for this article, but neither replied. Concerns from those organizations around FIFA’s decision were made public at the end of 2025, with both calling for FIFA to act on human rights issues.

“Infantino’s actions are in many respects politically and ethically unprecedented,” added Tomlinson.

That wasn’t the case when he arrived in office, succeeding former FIFA boss Sepp Blatter who didn’t exactly leave with a clean record. However, since then, Infantino has, in many ways, pushed the boundaries even further than many men before him.

“Infantino has accepted an award from Vladimir Putin following the men’s World Cup in Russia in 2018; he has supported Qatar, even taking up residency in the country, at every stage of the build-up to the controversial Qatar 2022 men’s World Cup; and, with little debate, has allocated the 2034 event to Saudi Arabia. In the build-up to the 2026 event he has taken up residency in Miami, pretty much on the doorstep of his mentor Trump,” Tomlinson explained.

“This is not the conduct of the representative of a global, democratic organisation. Infantino has without doubt escalated the ethical conflicts characterizing the contemporary game,” Tomlinson added.

The show must go on?

Many sports events around the world have been faced with challenging ethical considerations or political shadows, but in most cases the action on the field takes place.

A 2025 paper by Paul Bertin and Pauline Grippa published in Political Psychology revealed that many fans who intended to boycott the 2022 World Cup did not. This research is among the many reasons why Wojtowicz believes the draw of football makes ethical boycotts unlikely, but fans should be proactively engaged all the same.

“If someone turns around and says, ‘Well, Trump’s put on a great World Cup, hasn’t he?’ The correct response should be: ‘What are you talking about? He’s got nothing to do with this, and he is using this to look better’,” Wojtowicz said.

“I think the point is you just have to engage with it. You have to think about it and and make sure you don’t let it slip because the World Cup’s happening,” Wojtowicz said. “I think small acts of ethical resistance can be helpful.”

Edited by: Matt Pearson