2026-06-10T04:00:07.962Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
本文由AI生成摘要，经CNN编辑审核。
唐纳德·特朗普原本以为自己会错过踏上全球最大体育舞台的机会，2018年美国获得本届世界杯联合举办权时，他曾哀叹自己“没法到场”，因为总统任期限制。
但让他得以实现历史性政治复出、成为第二位连任两届非连续任期的美国总统的经历，为他争取到了政治上的额外时间，也让他能参与到这场盛大的足球盛会中。
特朗普向来擅长将自己融入全球时代思潮，因此他抓住了这次机会。
他自豪地展示了一尊亮闪闪的世界杯复刻奖杯，与椭圆形办公室的金色装饰相得益彰；他将足球国际足联主席詹尼·因凡蒂诺纳入自己的“让美国再次伟大”全球阵营；去年在美国举办的国际足联俱乐部赛事中，他为切尔西队颁发奖杯后，像自己踢进制胜球一样和球队一同庆祝。
但将于周四开幕的2026年世界杯，或许更能凸显其政治主张的分歧，而非他对这项美丽运动的热情。尽管特朗普或许在寻求新机会来彰显自己的全球影响力，但许多海外批评者可能会因他第二届任期内的动荡与分歧之举而心生疏离。
本届世界杯开幕之际，特朗普的政治声望正因国内日益下滑的支持率和海外遭遇的挫折而走低。
因凡蒂诺在特朗普的好友未能获得诺贝尔和平奖后，将首届国际足联和平奖授予特朗普，如今这一行为显得颇为尴尬——就在此前，这位美国总统对另一个世界杯参赛国伊朗发动了军事打击。
特朗普的强硬移民政策让一些外国球迷觉得在美国不受欢迎，这给世界杯开幕前的筹备蒙上了阴影。一名受人尊敬的索马里裁判被拒绝入境，而此时美国政府正指控明尼苏达州的索马里裔民众存在欺诈行为（该社群否认相关指控）。据悉，塞内加尔国家队在抵达世界杯赛前训练营时遭遇了严苛的安全检查，不过塞内加尔足协表示，他们早预料到安保流程，并认为此举正常。伊朗周二则称，其在美国的三场小组赛的球票分配已被取消。
此前还有人担忧，美国移民海关执法局（ICE）官员可能会在拥有大量美国球迷的南美球队的比赛现场搜查无证移民，尽管美国政府已试图平息这些担忧。
与此同时，飞涨的票价让许多球迷望而却步，有人指责国际足联将世界杯更多地视为一场捞钱活动，而非为足球传统上的工薪阶层球迷举办的庆祝活动。高不可攀的票价，是西方社会普遍存在的经济负担危机和全球南方国家面临的经济不平等的缩影。就连特朗普都对美国队首场比赛每张1000美元的门票望而却步。“老实说，我当然想去现场，但我也不会花这个钱，”他在接受《纽约邮报》采访时说道。
更广泛地说，特朗普在第二届任期内的激烈举措——包括对竞争经济体加征关税、抨击亲密盟友的社会制度——制造了全球紧张氛围，这与国际足联宣扬促进团结与欢乐的宗旨格格不入。曾有短暂时间传出欧洲国家可能抵制本届世界杯的消息，起因是特朗普要求丹麦归还格陵兰岛。
这远非首次遭遇政治风暴的全球体育赛事。美国曾因苏联入侵阿富汗而抵制莫斯科奥运会。上一届卡塔尔世界杯则因包括体育场建设 migrant工人死亡在内的人权虐待指控而蒙上阴影。
在赛事开幕前，几乎每一项大型体育赛事都会遭遇政治、商业化和观赛资格相关的负面头条新闻。但2026年由美国、加拿大和墨西哥联合举办的世界杯，在西半球对立加剧的背景下，其高度政治化还有一个几乎注定会引发两极分化的额外因素：特朗普。
这位美国总统总能引发极端的正面和负面反应，这让人们将注意力集中在了因凡蒂诺与这位美国领导人走得如此之近的决定上。
这位国际足联主席频繁现身华盛顿和海湖庄园。他甚至出席了特朗普去年在埃及举办的加沙和平峰会。在美国总统连任就职集会结束后，他在Instagram上发文称：“我们将一起，不仅让美国再次伟大，也让整个世界再次伟大。”
这一明显的支持表态似乎与国际足联的章程相悖，章程强调该组织“在政治事务中保持中立”。不过，因凡蒂诺去年在北爱尔兰的一次会议上为自己与特朗普的友谊辩护。据法新社援引他的话称：“我认为，要让世界杯取得成功，与总统保持密切关系绝对至关重要。”
尽管如此，赛事开幕前的争议还是让人不禁质疑，国际足联从特朗普那里到底争取到了多少筹码。
“因凡蒂诺或许会说，‘作为这个组织的主席，我需要做些什么来获得政治支持，让一切顺利进行’，”芝加哥全球事务委员会高级非常驻研究员亚历山大·库利说道。但国际足联可能已经陷入了政治陷阱。“我认为你现在看到的是，特朗普政府其实根本不在乎全球舆论。”
因凡蒂诺绝非第一个发现讨好这位要求表现出尊重的美国总统并无多少回报的全球人物。许多欧洲领导人在特朗普重返白宫的第一年对他百般奉承，但仍无法平息他的怒火，这将跨大西洋关系推至数十年来的最低点。
同时也是巴纳德学院政治学教授的库利认为，特朗普政府或许正在利用对待世界杯球迷、代表团和裁判的方式，向其基本盘打一张典型的移民牌。“如果全世界都为此愤怒或失望，那又有什么关系呢？”库利转述了政府可能持有的态度。
世界杯被广泛认为是全球规模最大的体育赛事。据国际足联数据，2022年卡塔尔世界杯决赛吸引了15亿观众观看。特朗普常常惊叹于这项赛事的规模，去年他在椭圆形办公室曾表示：“这就相当于一个月里每天都举办三场超级碗。”
这位拥有一定权威的体育迷总统，酷爱庞大的观众群体和热度极高的公众关注度。他被如此宏大的场面所吸引也就不足为奇了。
预计特朗普将在整个赛事期间通过社交媒体或赛场内外的任何争议发表评论，这符合他利用体育传递社会、文化和政治信息的习惯。例如，在他第一任期内，他经常抨击前NFL四分卫科林·卡佩尼克等球员为抗议警察暴力而单膝下跪的行为。
但将体育与政治混为一谈可能会适得其反。周一晚上他现身纽约NBA总决赛赛场时，遭到了观众的猛烈嘘声。而他渴望借用他人成功的行为，甚至可能掩盖赛事本身的高光时刻。在今年冬奥会男子冰球决赛美国击败加拿大后，特朗普和他的联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔介入了球队的庆祝活动，将原本的全国团结时刻变成了政治分裂事件。
各国领导人常常试图利用世界杯。比如英国首相哈罗德·威尔逊在英格兰1966年世界杯夺冠后，就借此宣扬民族自豪感。阿根廷军政府将1978年本土举办的世界杯夺冠作为宣传工具。俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京在2018年主办世界杯，试图在因吞并克里米亚而遭到孤立后恢复国际声望。批评者称卡塔尔世界杯和即将到来的2034年沙特阿拉伯世界杯是反民主政权的声誉“体育洗白”。
这让批评者认为，因凡蒂诺将自己视为兼具地缘政治色彩和足球管理者身份的人物。他与特朗普和沙特王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼等领导人的亲近，反映了这样一个时代：亿万富翁所有者和中东财富基金拥有众多顶级俱乐部，而强人和寡头主导着政治和企业生活。
不过，大型体育赛事通常会挫败政客们试图劫持赛事的企图。世界杯往往以足球场上的精彩瞬间而被铭记，比如荷兰传奇球星约翰·克鲁伊夫在1974年世界杯上令人眼花缭乱的转身，或是保罗·罗西的进球横扫对手帮助意大利夺得1982年世界杯冠军。
被人们铭记的争议通常都发生在球场上——比如1986年四分之一决赛阿根廷球员迭戈·马拉多纳臭名昭著的“上帝之手”手球进球，或是2006年决赛中齐内丁·齐达内令人震惊的头槌攻击，导致法国队不敌意大利队。
在接下来的一个月里，某个瞬间的精彩表现或是一时冲动的行为，将再次证明，即使在如今商业化和政治化的世界杯中，为何这项赛事仍能让全世界为之驻足。
深谙此道的因凡蒂诺比任何人都清楚这一点。今年在达沃斯世界经济论坛上，他曾表示，在卡塔尔，一旦足球开赛，政治争议便烟消云散。
“当足球开始滚动，奇迹上演时，我们几乎没有发生任何意外事件，”他说道。
Trump wanted to star at the World Cup, but politics may spoil the party
2026-06-10T04:00:07.962Z / CNN
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
Donald Trump thought he’d miss out on the chance to stride the globe’s biggest sporting stage, lamenting in 2018, when the US won the right to co-host this year’s World Cup finals, that “I won’t be here” owing to presidential term limits.
But the historic political comeback that made him only the second president to win two nonconsecutive terms bought him political extra time and a role in the massive soccer extravaganza.
Trump has always had a flair for inserting himself into the global zeitgeist. So he seized his chance.
He proudly displayed a gleaming replica World Cup that complemented the golden decor of his Oval Office; he welcomed soccer supremo Gianni Infantino into his global MAGA orbit; and after presenting Chelsea with the trophy in a FIFA club tournament in the US last year, he celebrated with the team like he’d scored the winning goal.
But the 2026 World Cup finals that open on Thursday may serve to highlight the discord of his politics more than his enthusiasm for the beautiful game. While Trump may be looking for a new chance to promote his global ubiquity, many overseas critics are likely to be alienated by contributions that epitomize the turbulence and discord of his second term.
The finals come at a moment when Trump’s political star is waning due to growing unpopularity at home and reverses overseas.
Infantino’s award of an inaugural FIFA Peace Prize to Trump — after his friend was passed over for the Nobel version — now looks awkward after the president launched military strikes against another World Cup qualifying nation, Iran.
Trump’s hardline immigration policies, which left some foreign fans feeling unwelcome in the United States, are overshadowing the countdown to opening games. A respected Somali referee was refused entry at a time when the administration is accusing Somalis in Minnesota of fraud. (The community denies the claims.) The Senegalese team reportedly endured harsh security checks when arriving for their pre-World Cup camp, though the federation said it anticipated the security procedure and deemed it normal. And Iran said Tuesday that its ticket allocation for its three group games in the US had been canceled.
This follows concerns that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers could conduct sweeps for undocumented migrants at games involving South American teams with large followings in the United States, though the administration has tried to tamp down those fears.
Soaring ticket prices, meanwhile, have priced many fans out of games, leading to accusations that FIFA sees the World Cup finals more as a money grab than a celebration of football’s traditionally working-class fans. Out-of-reach ticket prices are a metaphor for affordability crises stalking western societies and economic inequalities faced by Global South countries. Even Trump balked at tickets costing $1,000 for the first Team USA game. “I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you,” he told the New York Post.
More broadly, Trump’s searing second term, which has seen him slap tariffs on competing economies and lambaste the societies of close allies, has created an atmosphere of global tension that sits uneasily with FIFA’s claims to promote unity and joy. For a fleeting moment, there was talk of a European boycott after Trump demanded Denmark hand over Greenland.
This is far from the first global sporting event to be hit by a political storm. The US led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The last World Cup in Qatar was clouded by accusations of human rights abuses, including the deaths of migrant workers in building stadiums.
Before the competition begins, almost every huge sporting event is beset by bad headlines about politics, commercialization and access. But the hyper-politicization of the 2026 World Cup, co-hosted with Canada and Mexico at a time of Western Hemisphere antagonism, has an added ingredient almost guaranteed to cause polarization: Trump.
The US president’s tendency to create extreme positive and negative reactions has focused attention on Infantino’s decision to align himself so closely with the US leader.
The FIFA president has been ubiquitous in Washington and Mar-a-Lago. He even showed up at Trump’s Gaza peace summit in Egypt last year. After the US president’s second-term inaugural rally, he declared on Instagram, “Together, we will make not only America great again, but also the entire world.”
This apparent endorsement seemed to conflict with FIFA’s statutes, which stress it remains “neutral in matters of politics.” Infantino, however, defended his friendship with Trump at a meeting in Northern Ireland last year. “I think it is absolutely crucial for the success of a World Cup to have a close relationship with the president,” Infantino was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.
Still, eve-of-tournament controversies raise the question of just how much leverage FIFA has won with Trump.
“Infantino might say, ‘(This is) what do I have to do as president of this organization, to secure political support, so that everything goes smoothly,’” said Alexander Cooley, a senior nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. But FIFA may have walked into a political trap. “I think what you’re seeing is that the Trump administration really doesn’t care about global public opinion.”
Infantino would not be the first global figure to find that buttering up a US president who demands shows of respect has little payoff. Many European leaders flattered the president during his first year back in office but couldn’t slake his fury, which drove transatlantic relations to their lowest point in decades.
Cooley, also a professor of political science at Barnard College, argued that Trump’s team may be making a classic immigration play to his base with treatment of World Cup fans, delegations and referees. “If the world is up in arms or disappointed in that, who cares?” Cooley said, paraphrasing a possible administration sentiment.
The World Cup finals are widely regarded as the world’s largest sporting event. According to FIFA, 1.5 billion viewers watched the final in Qatar in 2022. Trump often marvels at the scale of the event, saying last year in the Oval Office, “(It’s) like three Super Bowls every day for a month.”
The president, a sports fan of some authority, loves huge audiences and the white heat of publicity. It’s hardly surprising that he’s drawn to such a gargantuan spectacle.
Trump can be expected to weigh in throughout the tournament on social media or any on- or off-field controversies, in keeping with his habit of using sports to drive social, cultural and political messages. During his first term, for example, he often slammed former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players who took a knee to protest police brutality.
But mixing sports and politics can backfire. He was brutally booed after showing up at an NBA Finals Game in New York on Monday night. And his craving to co-opt others’ success can overshadow the moment. The US hockey triumph over Canada in the final of the Winter Olympics this year turned a moment of national unity into one of political division after Trump and his FBI Director Kash Patel inserted themselves into the team’s victory celebrations.
World leaders often try to exploit World Cups. Some — like British Prime Minister Harold Wilson after England’s 1966 World Cup triumph — wrapped themselves in the flag. Argentina’s junta used the country’s win as hosts in 1978 as propaganda. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hosting of the 2018 World Cup sought to restore international prestige after he was ostracized for annexing Crimea. Critics have dismissed Qatar’s World Cup and the forthcoming 2034 tournament in Saudi Arabia as reputational “sports washing” by anti-democratic regimes.
This had led critics to argue that Infantino sees himself as a geopolitical figure as much as a footballing one. His closeness to leaders like Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reflects an era when multibillionaire owners and Middle Eastern wealth funds own many top clubs as strongmen and oligarchs dominate political and corporate life.
Still, great sporting events usually defy attempts by politicians keen to hijack them. World Cups are defined by moments of footballing panache, like the bamboozling turn by Dutch legend Johan Cruyff at the 1974 finals or Paolo Rossi’s goal-scoring rout that led Italy to the title in 1982.
Controversies that are remembered are usually on the pitch — like Argentine Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” handball goal in the 1986 quarter-final against England, or Zinedine Zidane’s stunning head butt that helped consign France to defeat to Italy in the 2006 final.
Some time over the next month, a second of brilliance or a rush of blood will underscore why World Cups, even in their corporatized and politicized modern renderings, make the world stand still.
The quintessentially political Infantino understands this better than anyone. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, he noted that in Qatar, the political furor faded once the football kicked off.
“When the ball started rolling, and the magic started, we had virtually no incidents,” he said.