Paraguay has a tough fight against France today, which means President Santiago Peña may have to savor his last chance to wrap himself in the flag of Latin America’s most over-performing team.
Few of the world’s elected leaders have done as much as Peña to associate themselves with their country’s World Cup successes. He has traveled to the United States to watch his team in action, and declared a national holiday after it eliminated former World Cup champions Germany on penalty kicks.
“When Paraguay wins on the world stage like it did against Germany, it becomes clear cause for celebration,” said Greg Ross, a Paraguay specialist at the Washington-based consultancy McLarty Associates. “It also offers an opportunity to project a sense of national unity that is usually difficult to achieve in the day-to-day of Paraguayan politics.”
Peña, a conservative former central banker first elected in 2023, has savored the opportunity. He traveled to the United States for Paraguay’s first match, against the United States, where he met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But after the team lost to the United States, some of his citizens suggested Peña's presence might have jinxed the team’s performance. That may have discouraged Peña from attending the team’s second match, against Turkey near San Francisco, despite the fact that some were already working to arrange meetings with Silicon Valley tech leaders to help advance Peña’s agenda to make the energy-rich country a hub for U.S.-backed data centers.
He also skipped the first knockout match, against Germany, this time with a clear excuse. He said he had to remain in Asunción for a previously scheduled congressional address and summit for the Mercosur regional trade bloc, whose rotating presidency Peña now holds.
Peña released a picture on social media watching the Germany match from his living room, wearing the country’s red-and-white striped jersey — from which he scrawled his signature on the order declaring a national holiday. It was a reprise of an earlier Peña move to associate himself with the team’s successes, when he signed a similar order marking a national holiday after Paraguay clinched its World Cup spot in the tournament last September.
He said he intends to be back in the same spot when the team plays France in Philadelphia today.
“I’m going to watch it at home, just like I did last time,” Peña said, according to Paraguayan media. "I always receive invitations for every match as president, and I also have to say that, deep down, I’m a bit of a superstitious person, you know? So, I prefer to just watch from here.”
47%The share of voters who associate with France’s far-right National Rally who told the latest POLITICO Poll that they would be proud if their country won the World Cup. It is the lowest number among any of the five parties measured, with the center-right Republicans at 68 percent and Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble at 63 percent. That makes France an outlier among the five countries surveyed in the poll; in all the others voters on the far right were most likely to say a World Cup trophy would make them proud.
Follow other findings from the latest POLITICO poll here.
Morocco’s win is perhaps fitting for Independence Day. The country was the first to formally recognize American sovereignty all the way back in 1777, more than a half-decade before the end of the Revolutionary War. On Saturday, they took down Canada by a 3-0 scoreline, with goals from Azzedine Ounahi and Soufiane Rahimi.
Americans are fed up with politics invading every aspect of their lives. But many can’t kick the habit.
Roughly 60 percent of Americans say it feels like politics are everywhere these days where it does not make sense for things to be political, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll. It’s a rare point of harmony between Republicans and Democrats, with majorities of both parties also agreeing that it is becoming less important what celebrities say about politics.
Unless they agree with them.
The same people who want politics out of everyday life are still influenced when the celebrities’ or athletes’ opinions align with their own. Nearly 70 percent of voters who backed Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 would think “more positively” about a movie star if they spoke out against President Donald Trump. The inverse is also true: For nearly 60 percent of the president’s voters, their perception of a star would improve if they expressed support for him.
That picture comes into even sharper relief among the strongest partisans, who are more likely to expect that their favorite celebrities and institutions around them express their political views than those who are more in the middle.
That presents a complicated and often contradictory picture of how voters engage in politics as it bleeds into their daily lives — and the precarious line celebrities and local leaders need to walk as culture and politics become hard to detangle.
Celebrities and athletes have increasingly spoken out about causes like ICE crackdowns and racial equity on the world stage. Key culture podcasts — from the Joe Rogan Experience to Call Her Daddy — have hosted politicians including Trump and Harris. And actors like George Clooney were critical in calling for former President Joe Biden to end his 2024 campaign.
“Everyone should always speak up for what they believe in,” said Jordan C. Brown, a Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist who has worked with campaigns and celebrities alike. “But there is a cost, and I think I would just caution people of the cost.”
The result is an American public that doesn’t quite know what it wants, one that’s tired of their lives being politicized — but are also influenced by partisan statements.
Voters still care about where celebrities and institutions stand
Majorities of both Harris and Trump voters say politics has invaded spaces where it doesn’t belong, but Trump voters are more concerned than Harris voters are.
For example, most Trump voters (52 percent) say there is too much politics in sports, compared to 31 percent of Harris voters who say the same. In some areas of daily life — like sports, movies and on television, and music — pluralities of Harris voters say there’s an acceptable amount of politics present.
But few Americans say they want more.
Some Americans also claim bringing politics into other realms doesn’t affect them. A plurality of Harris voters — 38 percent — say it doesn’t matter to them if athletes, for example, talk about politics.
And yet, the poll finds, Republicans and Democrats alike actually are swayed by statements from businesses and celebrities.
Strong majorities report that celebrities’, athletes’ or even their local grocery store owners’ political statements impact their views of that individual. And roughly one in five people say they have changed their own opinion on a political topic because a celebrity spoke out about it.
The poll results also reveal a clear pattern for when those statements matter most: Americans respond positively to them when they reflect their own world views.
The majority of 2024 Trump voters say they would view an athlete more positively if they made statements aligned with the president's agenda, like “We need to crack down on the crime running rampant in our cities.” On the other side, over 60 percent of Harris voters say they would think more positively about athletes who make statements like “We need to tax the richest people in this country.” That’s true even for voters on both sides who said there is “too much” politics in sports.
It’s a familiar phenomenon, according to Shaun Harper, a University of Southern California professor who has researched athletes’ political activism. He described the “‘I don't want politics in my sports unless they're my politics’” mindset as “anti-democratic.”
“It is unfair to athletes and to our democracy to expect them to only selectively leverage their platforms and their free speech rights,” he said.
The most politically engaged voters are the ones who care most
The strongest partisans are even more curious about what local, religious and cultural leaders have to say compared with those in the center.
More than one-third of Trump voters who self-identify as “MAGA Republicans”, the president’s most loyal base, say religious institutions should make their views clear to their followers, compared to 22 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters.
MAGA Trump voters are also more likely to act on those political differences: Forty-three percent say they would not buy from a business that made clear it held different political views — compared with 27 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters and roughly 30 percent across all adults.
On the other side of the aisle, about one-third of self-identified “strong” Democrats say athletes should make their political views clear, double the 16 percent of those who say they are “not strong” Democrats who agree.
And 36 percent of “strong” Democrats believe schools and universities should make their political views clear to their students, compared to 22 percent of “not strong” Democrats.
Those who voted third party, or who didn’t vote at all, are even less eager to hear about politics in their regular life: Just 12 percent say celebrities should make their political views clear to their fans. And less than 10 percent said they’ve changed their opinion about a political topic because a celebrity spoke about it.
Celebrities are already less willing to engage with partisan politics
The results shed light on an ongoing debate as stars and campaign strategists try to figure out how — or even if — to engage celebrities with politics.
Finding a way to do so that doesn’t damage their own careers, given the complexity of voters’ and fans’ partisan divides, can be difficult, the poll shows. When some voters claim to want neutrality but secretly want their favorite stars’ politics to match their own, but others demand political engagement, it leaves celebrities to decide which group they can upset the least.
Democrats have used celebrity endorsements and surrogates in significant measure since former President Barack Obama’s star-studded 2008 presidential campaign. Harris, two years ago, saw an outpouring of support for her presidential campaign from a host of VIPs: Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland appeared at her rally in Houston, Taylor Swift posted an endorsement for the former vice president to her millions of social media followers, and Lady Gaga performed at her election-eve rally in Philadelphia.
But that backfired for the celebrities when Harris lost, said Todd Hawkins, a Democratic strategist and consultant based in Los Angeles.
“What we saw was the biggest backlash as a result of losing, folks saying celebrities should not tell us what to do, no one cares about what they think,” he said.
Trepidation about the partisan divide is driving many celebrities’ reluctance to get involved in politics in a high-profile way — a dynamic captured by actor Jennifer Lawrence in a 2025 interview with the New York Times, when she was asked about her willingness to speak out against Trump.
“I don’t really know if I should,” she said. “But as we’ve learned, election after election, celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for. So then what am I doing? I’m just sharing my opinion on something that’s going to add fuel to a fire that’s ripping the country apart.”
Last year, actor and entrepreneur Selena Gomez posted — and later deleted — a tearful video responding to immigration crackdowns that drew criticism from the right. And Hunter Hess, an Olympic freestyle skier, drew heat from Trump for saying that representing the U.S. in the Games “brings up mixed emotions” after Alex Pretti and Renée Good were shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
“They’re very concerned, they're scared as hell, but they were scared last year more than anything,” Hawkins said of celebrities. “I still see trepidation on how and what they will do to be engaged.”
The connection between politics and pop culture, however, will hardly dissolve anytime soon, said Brown, the LA-based Democratic strategist: “There's that phrase: the only thing Hollywood and D.C. love more than themselves are each other.”
As Canada exits the World Cup, Prime Minister Mark Carney posted on X: "Today, we feel nothing but pride ... An incredible journey that bodes well for great things to come. Thank you to our team, the fans, and everyone who contributed to our best performance to date at the World Cup." Canada is the first host nation to be knocked out of the 2026 tournament. Mexico plays England on Sunday evening and the U.S. takes on Belgium on Monday.
Demonstrators donning the logo and insignia of Patriot Front, a white supremacist group, were seen protesting in the Eastern Market neighborhood and on Capitol Hill on the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.
Sporting white masks, sunglasses and Patriot Front’s signature tan caps, the protesters carried Confederate, Patriot Front and upside-down U.S. flags as they marched through Capitol Hill. The group was also photographed riding public transit on Saturday morning.
Outside Union Station, demonstrators chanted phrases including “Life, liberty, victory!” and “Reclaim America!” — slogans regularly used by the group.
Later, anti-Trump demonstrators were filmed walking toward the White House carrying a large Declaration of Independence banner and chanting “8647,” a slogan calling for Trump’s removal from the presidency.
Patriot Front was founded in 2017 by Thomas Ryan Rousseau, who split from the alt-right organization Vanguard America in the aftermath of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Patriot Front’s website describes the group as a “fraternal, nationalist, activist organization” and writes that “Our people, born to this nation of our European race, must reforge themselves as a new collective capable of asserting our right to cultural independence.”
The D.C. mayor’s office referred POLITICO to the Metropolitan police department for comment.
“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is tracking First Amendment activities that occurred this morning in the Eastern Market neighborhood,” the department said in a statement Saturday. “MPD recognizes the rights of individuals to peacefully express their views and remains committed to maintaining public safety and security for DC residents and visitors.”
France’s national soccer team has become an unlikely barometer for the country’s leading far-right party, whose leaders' shifting rhetoric about the team reflects its broader attempts at moderation — from appeals around racial identity to working-class solidarity — and helps explain why the National Rally is now seen as having a genuine shot at the presidency after decades of falling short.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the party known during his lifetime as the National Front, became perhaps the most vocal domestic antagonist of France’s soccer team as it emerged as an international force in the 1990s. After the country assembled a formidable squad led by nonwhite players with heritage from across its former colonial holdings,Le Pen disowned them as “fake Frenchmen who don’t sing the Marseillaise or visibly don’t know it.”
“It’s a little bit artificial to bring in foreign players and baptize them ‘Equipe de France,’" Le Pen said in 1996, words he repeated even after the teamwon the World Cup two years later. “They put an Algerian in to please the Arabs, a Kanak who can’t even sing the national anthem, blacks to satisfy the Antillais. None of them has any place in a French team.”
As Marine Le Pen prepared to succeed her father as leader of the party, she echoed his critique of the team as an example of France’s new migrants refusing to assimilate,calling the 2010 World Cup squad a collection of "ethnic, religious clans that are creating a sort of apartheid within the team itself.”
“Most of these people consider themselves as representatives of France one minute, when they’re at the World Cup,”she said in a television interview at the time. “But the next, they feel like they belong to another country or have another nationality in their hearts.”
As France’s governing parties weakened over the 2010s, Le Pen saw an opportunity to win support from traditional center-right constituencies. She insisted her party was “not racist,”ejected her father after he repeated statements denying the Holocaust, and rebranded the movement under a friendlier National Rally banner (abbreviated as RN in French).
Even if she was not ready to be a fan of the French national team — Le Pen conceded she "knows absolutely nothing about football” and expressed a preference for rugby — she was ready to abandon her father’s loud tradition of naysaying its successes.
“It’s hard for the RN and far-right wing to be as blatantly critical of Les Bleus when the team has represented the nation well over the last decade in both their on- and off-pitch endeavors,” said Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff, a sports diplomacy expert who teaches at New York University’s Robert Preston Tisch Institute for Global Sport and isauthor of two books onsports in France.
When France won a World Cup for the second time, in 2018, Le Pen made her target not the champions themselves but politicians who latched on to the team’s successes. Emmanuel Macron, the centrist who had defeated her for the presidency a year earlier “should focus on the policies being implemented in France, about which there is much to say, and let Les Bleus go all the way to victory,”she told an interviewer. Sporting success, added Le Pen, “won't make worries disappear, it won't make the dangers of insecurity and terrorism disappear, it won't make the financial struggles disappear.”
It was part of a broader redirection of far-right resentments away from race and ethnicity to class and status, embodied by theyellow-vest protests that began months after that World Cup victory. Le Pen began to speak of France’s most famous athletes the way her father once dismissed Paris’ detached elites — “technocratic robots, graduates of the École Nationale d'Administration, and bourgeois bohemians,” he said in a 2006 address to a party convention — rather than as ungrateful immigrants representing the country’s restive suburbs.
The populist shift was evident in 2024, when several of theteam’s top strikers all joined a swift counterattack against the National Rally following its gains in regional elections. French captain Kylian Mbappé called the outcome “catastrophic” and cautioned that “the extremes are knocking at the doors of power.”
“When you have the luck to have a huge salary, be a multimillionaire, the chance to travel in a private jet, I am a little annoyed to see these sports figures giving lessons to people who struggle to make ends meet,” Jordan Bardella, a Le Pen protégé then leading the National Rally,responded to Mbappé.
Now Bardella and Le Pen are waiting to see who will be the party’s candidate in next year’s presidential elections, a choice likely to be shaped by alooming court decision this week about Le Pen’s eligibility to run due to an embezzlement conviction. Polls show either candidate would be in a strong position to win the presidency.
The two party leadersdisagree on plenty of policy and political questions, but when it comes to France’s national team — now seen as favorites to again lift the World Cup trophy — Bardella and Le Pen are united in their messaging.
“This tendency of actors, footballers and singers to tell the French how they should vote — particularly those earning 1,300 to 1,400 euros a month, while they themselves are millionaires or even billionaires — is starting to be very poorly received in our country,”Le Pen said after Mbappé stood by his anti-RN commentsin a widely discussed Vanity Fair interview published just before the World Cup began.
“Those people who are fortunate enough to live well, to be protected from insecurity, poverty and unemployment,” shetold CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, should “maintain a certain reserve.”
BRUSSELS — Destroying the EU’s environmental policies to boost manufacturing and keep Europe competitive with China and the U.S. is a mistake, says former Arsenal player and French international soccer player Mathieu Flamini.
Instead, the athlete, who is now the CEO of a France-based chemicals company, says the bloc should double down on moving away from fossil fuels, arguing that weakening rules like the EU's Emissions Trading System would not solve Europe's competitiveness problem.
"The reality is, if we believe we're going to remove the carbon tax in Europe and suddenly we're gonna be competitive with China or other [regions], we're lying to ourselves," Flamini told POLITICO in an interview.
Flamini co-founded GF Biochemicals in 2013, the same year he returned to north London to play for Arsenal for the second time, after a five-year stint in Italy with AC Milan.
Flamini won three caps for the French team, making his debut in 2007 against Morocco — a potential quarterfinal opponent for France at this World Cup. His company turns agricultural waste into bio-based chemicals used in everyday items such as paints, cosmetics and cleaning products.
The Frenchman believes the European chemicals industry, already under pressure from soaring energy prices and geopolitical shocks such as the Iran crisis, needs to accept its inevitable transition from fossil fuel-based ingredients towards bio-based alternatives.
The case against fossil fuels is two-pronged: They pollute the atmosphere with planet-warming CO2; and they are mostly imported from outside the EU, compromising the bloc’s strategic autonomy.
"We have to embrace and accept that there is an evolution like any other industry, from combustion engine to electric engine; [in the] chemical industry, from a petrol-based industry to bio-based," said Flamini.
But that's easier said than done. Lawmakers and member countries are already looking for ways to weaken the ETS, or even scrap it altogether. At a ministers' meeting in Brussels last month, a handful of member countries raised concerns over the impact of carbon pricing on their industries during a meeting of EU economy ministers.
CALGARY, Alberta — When their national team faces off against Morocco today in its first-ever knockout match in a men’s World Cup, Canada’s political class will be in cowboy hats and boots.
The annual Calgary Stampede extravaganza attracts politicians and lobbyists who fly in for Stampede’s first four days for dealmaking, team building and/or partying — sometimes all three. Ottawa’s fishbowl and Toronto’s power set are drawn west by chuckwagon races and grandstand acts. They fit serious meetings in between carbo-loading pancakes, gawking at the rodeo and schmoozing up and down the nonstop reception circuit.
Once they reach Canada’s largest inland western city, federal pols are under a microscope: Do they look the part? Can they flip a pancake? Does it seem like they really want to be there?
Those who want to latch onto the newest outlet for Canada’s emergent patriotism may struggle to do so today. One of Saturday’s big political events — the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Calgary Stampede Mixer — begins at noon, an hour after the Canada-Morocco match kicks off in Houston.
Scheduling would have been more straightforward if the cowboy cosplayers had stayed put in Ottawa. The federal Department of Canadian Heritage — whose mandate is to support "Canadian identity and values, cultural development, and heritage” — is hosting a watch party at LeBreton Flats Park.
“From coast to coast to coast, the country is rallying behind the team as they write an incredible FIFA World Cup story,” Canada’s secretary of state for sport Adam van Koeverden said in a press release promoting the event sponsored by a government that has seen the tournament as an exercise in soft power. “It’s undeniable in moments like these that sport is a great nation-builder, and we can build Canada strong through sport.”
POLITICO's Canada Playbook will publish special editions from Calgary Stampede this weekend. You can subscribe here.
Morocco's starting lineup against Canada may have closer personal ties to Europe than North Africa. A majority of the squad, in fact, were born in Europe: 18 of 26 players, many from France.
That heritage captures the essence of a 21st century World Cup team — shaped by diaspora scouting, evolved eligibility rules and a more fluid sense of national belonging.
Morocco is far from alone; the tournament has featured scores of teams featuring so-called dual nationals. That includes Canada, a onetime soccer doormat that has leveraged its multiculturalism by explicitly prioritizing the recruitment of dual nationals from across the globe.
Stephen Eustáquio, the Canadian midfielder whose goal against South Africa secured the country's place in today's match against Morocco, could have also played for Portugal, which he represented at youth level before declaring his allegiance to Canada.
But few countries have mastered modern roster construction practices like Morocco, a semifinalist in 2022. Historically, top players of Arab and African descent — following decades of migration shaped by colonial empires — reinforced European national teams, which held a disproportionate share of World Cup slots. But this year’s 48-team expansion has altered that dynamic, nearly doubling the number of Asian and African tournament seats.
That, in turn, has offered more options to Europe-based players who either wanted to play for their ancestral nation or saw a clearer path to playing in the World Cup that way. Country switch rules have also eased iteratively since 2004, allowing players to qualify through birthplace, citizenship or heritage and, conditionally, switch countries later in careers.
Talent from European diaspora communities have also been incentivized to consider their heritage teams by the backdrop of ongoing clashes over immigration, integration and Muslim identity across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and beyond.
In some ways, this tournament serves as a hinge for Morocco; it confirms that the team’s 2022 World Cup breakthrough — marked by Madrid-native Achraf Hakimi eliminating Spain in a penalty shootout — was no fluke. And it conveys a more self-assured Moroccan stature, ahead of its status as a 2030 World Cup co-host. Morocco is no longer just a regional football power — it’s a team on shared terms with European heavyweights and a vessel for solidarity across the Maghreb, Arab world, African continent and global Muslim public.
MAGA-friendly Abelardo de la Espriella's decision to make Colombia's national soccer jersey a defining feature of his victorious right-wing presidential campaign has sparked a debate over the political ownership of national symbols.
While the yellow shirt has long been associated with moments of collective celebration, critics argue that its prominent use by a partisan candidate risks recasting it as a marker of political identity. A Bogotá judge even banned de la Espriella from wearing the jersey while campaigning before the June 21 vote.
After hearing from fans in Miami on Saturday night vociferously in support of de la Espriella and his unflinching law-and-order policies, POLITICO spoke to two experts on Colombian politics who say the episode reflects a broader pattern seen in populist movements, where patriotic imagery is deployed to blur the line between support for the nation and support for a political project.
“In my view, he was very deliberately politicizing the national team’s shirt,” Eduardo Gamarra, professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University, said. “The Colombian jersey is one of the few symbols that can still claim to belong to all Colombians, across region, class and ideology. That is precisely why it is attractive to a populist campaign: it allows a partisan political project to present itself as the nation itself.”
“This is not unique to Colombia. Populist politicians around the world routinely try to appropriate national symbols. In the United States, MAGA politics has turned the American flag and other patriotic symbols into markers of partisan identity. In Venezuela, Chavismo also understood the power of national colors, patriotic imagery and sporting symbols such as the Vinotinto [the national team],” Gamarra added. “De la Espriella’s use of the shirt was effective because it transformed the emotion around the national team into a signal of political belonging.”
“But to me the real surprise is not that de la Espriella tried to use the jersey, or even that it worked. The surprise is how ineffective opposition groups were in defending the shirt as a shared national symbol. They allowed a symbol that should belong to the whole country to be claimed by one political camp,” Gamarra said.
The jersey’s appeal, however, went beyond nationalism — helping to reinforce de la Espriella's carefully crafted populist image ahead of the election final round that he won in mid-June.
“Abelardo de la Espriella used the national team's shirt, traditionally a symbol of unity and celebration throughout the country, especially at the time of the World Cup, to associate his campaign with strong patriotism,” said Julian Gerez, assistant professor of criminology, law and society and political science at the University of California, Irvine. “But I think more importantly, it's about de la Espriella's own image: he is a multimillionaire lawyer but it is essential to his brand to appear as a man of the people. And as opposed to wearing a suit jacket or other formal attire, which is what might be expected, the jersey and hat play an important role in the way he portrays his image.”
“Ultimately, I think it was an effective tactic, but [leftist candidate] Ivan Cepeda's campaign ironically made it more effective by coming out against its use, which led to greater awareness of the jersey as linked to de la Espriella's campaign — and stronger defiance among his supporters in wearing the jersey,” Gerez added.
In letters published Monday and Wednesday, 90 MEPs pressed FIFA over actions they said undermine the world football governing body’s political neutrality.
POLITICO sat down with the author of Wednesday's letter, Lithuanian MEP Petras Auštrevičius from the liberal Renew group, to discuss how the European Parliament is taking a stand against FIFA.
FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Auštrevičius’ criticism.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell us why you wrote that letter condemning FIFA for allowing Russia to return to the U-15 World Cup.
The letter came as a reaction to FIFA's decision to open up the gates for the Russian U-15 team for the World Cup in October. To my mind, it's completely based on moral and political blindness. This period of time is absolutely wrong to send this kind of sport-based but politics-based signal to Russia. Imagine some national teams refusing to play against Russians will face disqualification, which is completely wrong and it will lead to unfair sport competitions. It's not the first time FIFA disappoints sport supporters and the wider public in this regard.
I can imagine the Russian U-15 team is on the field, and there will be a lot of sports viewers and participants in that stadium. I don't reject [the possibility of them protesting against] Russian players. I'm sorry for the Russian U-15 national team, but that's absolutely understandable for me, the public reaction toward their country's war of aggression against Ukraine.
Is the relationship between Infantino and Trump a cause for concern?
It's a demonstration of political affiliations. FIFA is not any longer a neutral sports organization, I am sorry to say. As long as they play those appeasing games with high politicians around the world, it's simply a disadvantage of FIFA rather than a strong point. We have to be concerned if that sport becomes rather political.
Lithuania is not in the World Cup, so who are you supporting?
Well, I've been supporting [the] Europeans. I've been a strong supporter of Germany — whew, disappointed. Disappointed.
DALLAS — Egyptian coach Hossam Hassan said he has no issue with the Dallas Police Department after an officer had a brief altercation with the coach's brother, team manager Ibrahim Hassan.
"Incidents like that happen, of course," Hassan said in a press conference after Egypt's shootout victory over Australia. "We have nothing to follow up in that regard."
The incident occurred at the team's Dallas hotel late on Thursday. The police department said officers “responded to the Westin at the request of hotel security regarding an individual without event credentials attempting to gain access.”
The Hassan twins are both decorated former players for both club Al-Ahly and Egypt's national team, for which they competed at the 1990 World Cup.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas has participated in three Super Bowl parades and one World Series parade celebrating his hometown Chiefs and Royals.
None compared to when Netherlands fans marched through downtown Kansas City, Missouri, ahead of their team's June 25 game at Arrowhead Stadium.
“It is special and different,” Lucas said, with a politician’s reluctance to get on the wrong side of a beloved hometown team.
Kansas City will host its knockout round game Friday: a match between Colombia and Ghana. Lucas was instrumental in making it happen, a key player in Kansas City’s bid to bring the World Cup to Missouri. Now he is basking in the moment — dancing to “Links Recht” with the Dutch, waving around an Ecuadorian flag and dancing with Mexican fans.
Like nearly every host city, Kansas City faced criticism ahead of the games over the challenging logistics of herding thousands of fans to a stadium that’s used to tailgaters instead of international tourists, the sky-high price of tickets and underwhelming hotel bookings.
“I think it’s a huge win for us,” Lucas said. “I know there's some discourse and scuttlebutt on the wisdom or not of some American cities, and not applying to be World Cup host countries. I have never regretted it, and I certainly don't regret it right now.”
Kansas City is the only Midwestern city to host games, after Chicago passed on making a bid. Lucas said the experience of serving as the representative for the middle of the country has allowed Kansas City to be “central diplomats” for the United States, welcoming in foreign fans with barbecue and block parties.
“Say what you will about what happens in corridors in Washington, Brussels or beyond,” Lucas said. “We've had the chance to share the best of America. And I think the best of America is its welcoming environment.”
NEW YORK — New York City has begun one of the busiest weekends in its history — Taylor Swift’s wedding celebration at Madison Square Garden today, a series of air, land and water celebrations for America’s 250th birthday tomorrow and a World Cup match in northern New Jersey on Sunday.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and a top Coast Guard official outlined their weekend plans Tuesday by sharing heat advisories, noise warnings, road closures and security precautions for land, air and sea.
“We have a comprehensive security plan in place for each of these events to ensure that everyone can enjoy the festivities safely,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani and Tisch, standing side by side, said that there are no specific or credible threats against the city but that they’re operating in a “heightened threat environment.” The comments came shortly before a couple scaled the top of the Empire State Building and unfurled a banner.
Police will be out in force and on 12-hour shifts. They’ll be deploying bomb-sniffing dogs, conducting security screenings at designated viewing areas and continuing to use anti-drone technology, which has so far intercepted nearly 100 drones that have flown into restricted air space since the World Cup’s outset.
The NYPD expects to spend about $92 million in overtime and other expenses for major events this summer. During the press conference at police headquarters, Mamdani ducked a question about whether Swift should be picking up the security tab for her wedding. Tisch described it as “an event that we are tracking” and said the “NYPD will, of course, have a detail in place.” Swift canceled a series of concerts in Austria in 2024 because of a terrorist plot.
It will be unusually noisy. A naval review Saturday morning, which Vice President JD Vance is expected to attend, will include a series of warships that will each conduct a 21-gun salute. The Macy’s fireworks show will be the biggest ever, with 85,000 fireworks shells, Tisch said.
It will also be hot. Mamdani has separately announced a plan to help cope with record temperatures expected to hit the city in coming days — officials have warned it may feel as hot as 112 degrees. The city plans to open cooling shelters across the five boroughs, along with a first-ever fleet of vans to help people get to them.
The weekend will be capped by Sunday's knockout match between Brazil and Norway at MetLife Stadium, although the attendant celebrations by the winning team's fans will probably cross the Hudson River. Some may even try to row.
This world leader visited his team’s dressing room after an epic victory that helped send them to the elimination rounds.
That’s Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who paid the team a visit after their 6-0 win against Qatar in Vancouver on June 18. Canada plays Morocco in Houston on Saturday.
If you want to trace Cape Verde’s emergence as a soccer power, you might go back to 2009, when the country beat Portugal on its way to a gold medal at the Jogos de Lusofonia.
The Lusofonia Games were a junior varsity Olympics for remnants of a common empire, an effort by the 12-country Association of Olympic Committees of Portuguese-Speaking Countries to mimic the Commonwealth Games or Jeux de la Francophonie, an upstart competition for former French colonies. On its face, all of these competitions were an experiment in geographically unlikely camaraderie — could tae kwon do artists from Equatorial Guinea bond with East Timorese ping-pong players? — but beneath, they were an exercise of raw global sports politics.
ACOLOP, as the association is known by its Portuguese abbreviation, was created in 2004 and hosted its first, nine-sport Jogos de Lusofonia the next year in Macau, the Chinese region that was a Portuguese colony until 1999. Around the business meetings that accompanied the second games in Lisbon, the conversation among the national Olympic officials who ran ACOLOP focused on Brazil’s effort then underway to claim both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics for Rio de Janeiro, the first in South America. Both successful bids were built on a Portuguese-speaking coalition that crossed the traditional geographical bases within FIFA and the International Olympic Committee.
The next Lusofonia Games were held in 2014 in Goa, the Indian city where Portuguese traders planted their flag in the 16th century. Then the games stopped, leaving behind a series of canceled plans for follow-up encounters and an archipelago of never-updated web pages.
“To be honest, I think the games ended,” João Malha, a Lisbon-based sports communications specialist who served as press officer for the 2009 games, told POLITICO. “At least, I’ve never heard anything about them since Covid.”
This era of competitive Cape Verde soccer — which has twice reached the quarterfinals of the African Cup of Nations — can be traced to the 2009 Lusofonia Games in Lisbon. The under-21 Cape Verdean side began with a bang: a 1-0 victory over host Portugal, from which the small Atlantic island nation had won its independence in 1975. It then stampeded through the five-country, round-robin tournament, defeating Mozambique and drawing against Angola en route to the country’s only gold medal, a task made admittedly easier by the fact that Brazil didn’t compete in soccer even as it was the leading medalist across the games.
For those of us who were at the José Gomes Stadium, the most eye-catching player on the pitch that month for Cape Verde was Ianique “Stopira” Tavares, a 21-year-old left back who rampaged down the opposition flank. Three years later Stopira — nicknamed for a French great — moved to a Hungarian club where he spent most of his career. He retired in 2023 and then reversed himself a year later so he could help Cape Verde qualify for the World Cup.
Stopira’s return was a success by any measure, marked by critical goals at every stage despite never having been much of a goal-scorer prior to his retirement. His winner helped second-tier Torreense defeat heavyweights Sporting Clube de Portugal in Portugal’s Taça cup final, becoming the first non-top flight club to reach the UEFA Europa League in its current incarnation. And last October, Stopira scored the most celebrated goal in his country’s history — an extra-time strike which sealed the win over Eswatini that sent Cape Verde to a World Cup for the first time.
Today, the team faces Argentina, and 38-year-old Stopira is likely to start on the bench, as he did in the three group-stage matches. But for at least one more day Stopira’s Cape Verde stands where the Jogos da Lusofonia imagined the country belonged: as a sporting peer to Portugal and Brazil.
When FIFA President Gianni Infantino visited the Oval Office last August, he presented President Donald Trump with a giant oversized ticket to the World Cup final.
It turns out 10 real ones accompany it, raising anticipation around the White House for a much-coveted invitation to the July 19 match at MetLife Stadium, not far from Trump's golf club in northern New Jersey.
Two people who have attended sporting events with Trump, granted anonymity to speculate on a sensitive matter, say they expect the coveted seats to go to family members and a handful of West Wing aides. Those on the hunt for an invitation might find White House FIFA World Cup Task Force czar Andrew Giuliani helpful, according to one of the people we spoke to, but he might steer inquiries to FIFA.com or to the White House Cabinet Affairs to adjudicate.
Trump's latest financial disclosure report reveals this is something of a standard gift from Infantino, who also gave Trump 10 tickets to the final match of last summer's FIFA Club World Cup, also at MetLife Stadium. Trump valued them at a combined $15,000 — tickets to the World Cup final will almost certainly be worth many multiples of that.
LONDON — Not everyone is happy that Prime Minister Keir Starmer decided to keep pubs open until 5 a.m. Monday for screenings of the England match against Mexico.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council complained that the “late announcement” means officers will be removed from other duties and work longer hours, despite the World Cup fixtures having “been known for a considerable time.” It’s the literal fun police.
A spokesperson for the PM said that it wasn’t known until Wednesday that England would progress to this point in the competition and that the government has been liaising with police throughout. But team Starmer won’t mind the cops reminding England fans who want to be in the pub at 4 a.m. that the PM is on their side.
CANBERRA, Australia — Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a Sydney audience Thursday that he’d urge state governors to declare a weeklong holiday if Australia wins the World Cup.
Albanese’s enthusiasm for the Socceroos' prospects — when Australia plays Egypt in their first knockout match — isn’t shared by many of his colleagues: POLITICO approached a dozen ministers and members of Parliament for comments, favorite players and travel plans regarding today's match, but all declined to respond.
The underlying reason: a 2025 travel spending scandal involving Sports Minister Anika Wells, which nearly cost her the ministry. The scandal left most MPs afraid to travel during Parliament's sitting weeks, leaving Jerome Laxale, a second-term member, as the unexpected face of the ruling Labor Party during group matches.
Laxale’s rise to fame was likened Wednesday during a roast at the Australian Parliamentary Press Gallery Midwinter Ball — the local version of the White House Correspondents' Dinner — to “subbing in Lionel Messi for a midfielder from Curaçao.”
Three MPs from the conservative opposition Liberal Party told The Sydney Morning Herald they were either paying their own way to the World Cup or able to join only because of existing unrelated travel plans.
The weeklong public holiday upon Australia's lifting the trophy — which, let's be honest, is probably not worth clearing one's schedule for — requires state governors to make official. The last time Albanese declared unilaterally declared one was upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
DALLAS — An Egyptian team staffer was involved in an altercation Thursday with a Dallas police officer in the lobby of the team’s hotel, the night before the team’s knockout match against Australia.
A video circulated by Al Jazeera and other outlets shows a man identified as team manager Ibrahim Hassan, a longtime national team player and brother of Egyptian coach Hossam Hassan, in a verbal and physical confrontation with the officer, whose name hasn’t been released.
The video shows the officer trying to block Hassan from approaching two other people. The officer can be seen shouting “back off” and shoving someone, but bystanders block the view of who he shoved. A second man in a T-shirt marked "Egypt" is seen a few seconds later confronting the Dallas officer. The altercation lasted a few more seconds before other people and at least one other Dallas police officer intervened.
The Dallas Police Department said that the incident happened at 10:50 p.m. Thursday at the Westin Hotel and that its officers “responded to the Westin at the request of hotel security regarding an individual without event credentials attempting to gain access.”
“The situation was resolved on scene, and DPD met with representatives of the team to address their concerns. The matter has since been resolved,” the department said in an emailed statement.
The department didn’t respond to follow-up questions via email or voice message, and the Egyptian Embassy and Egyptian Football Association didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
MIAMI — As fans battle the summer scorch to watch Argentina and Cape Verde today, local officials know what they are trying to avoid.
The last time Argentina played a major tournament was also in Miami Gardens, in July 2024, when the team was crowned Copa América champion after defeating Colombia. Before kickoff, thousands of fans — including those who didn’t have tickets — stormed the stadium gates and rushed past security. Dozens of people were ejected or arrested, and the game’s start time was delayed by more than an hour.
An after-action report from Miami-Dade County found that the incident was caused by a lack of intelligence gathering, insufficient security perimeters and large numbers of unticketed fans on site.
“Miami-Dade Emergency Management has conducted various training and exercises across a wide range of threat scenarios to enhance coordination, strengthen preparedness, and ensure a coordinated response among local, state, and federal partners during major events,” Dianne Fernandez, a spokesperson for county Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, said in a statement.
Fernandez referred specific questions on what protocols have changed since Copa America to the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said in a June press conference that the sheriff’s office would be using specialized training and equipment to control crowds. Fans will have to present their tickets multiple times before they “get anywhere near the stadium,” Cordero-Stutz said.
There is one new variable in the mix this time: triple-digit “feels like” temperatures and oppressive humidity Friday as a heat dome wallops the eastern U.S. Sweltering South Florida weather has already caused dozens of heat-related emergency calls during World Cup games this summer.
Miami Stadium’s Friday match is set to start at 6 p.m., only slightly outside of the day’s highest temperatures. Public health experts have flagged that searing summer weather could prove dangerous for players and fans alike, especially in open-air stadiums like Miami’s or street parties with copious amounts of alcohol, which can contribute to dehydration.
The county has installed cooling stations at Miami Stadium where fans and employees can access air conditioning and advertised a public network of libraries, parks and government buildings where other residents and visitors can cool down. The county will also have water trailers and water refill stations at public transit stops for fans to stay hydrated.
"Miami-Dade is proud to welcome the world to our County to celebrate this historic moment, and we want every resident and visitor to enjoy the experience safely," Levine Cava said in a June press release. "Heat is not a game — and in Miami-Dade, we know it.”
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Switzerland is busy selling itself as a premier venue for international sports competitions — and the government is throwing its weight behind the effort.
In June, Bern backed plans to fund international sports competitions from 2027 to 2029, and two weeks ago, it approved $247 million in funding for the 2038 Winter Olympics, which it is moving toward securing the right to host.
Ruth Metzler-Arnold, president of Switzerland's Olympic committee, said at the time that the 2038 bid "is bringing everyone together behind a concerted vision that will bolster Swiss sport in the long run and inspire generations to come."
Switzerland already has a sizable sporting footprint. Many international sports organizations — including FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, European football governing body UEFA and the Union Cycliste Internationale — are already headquartered in the Alpine country.
In early June, the Swiss approved more than a million dollars each to support the 2027 World Rowing Championships in Lucerne and the 2028 European men’s Handball Championships in Zurich. Government money will also flow to swimming, figure skating, basketball and bobsled championships.
Switzerland is currently in a "privileged dialogue" with the IOC over its 2038 Winter Games bid, meaning that it holds exclusive rights to organize a bid until the end of next year. Karl Stoss, the chair of the IOC’s Future Host Commission for the Olympic Winter Games, said in February that a host election could happen as soon as April 2027.
On the soccer field, Switzerland hosted the 2025 Women’s European Championship and co-hosted the 2008 men’s European Championship. Progress in its long-shot 2026 World Cup campaign — which continues tonight in Vancouver against Algeria — will only bolster Switzerland's sports credentials.
Many of the countries that failed to advance in the World Cup are seeing the normal cycle of accountability: angry fans, finger-pointing media, fired coaches. Uruguay’s sports officials have gone further, reportedly cancelling a team charter plane and making players take commercial flights home as a form of punishment. In Turkey, where a stunning crash-out was greeted with rage from many fans, the nation’s football boss has asked the justice minister to imprison citizens who criticize the team.
Yet nowhere have the political recriminations gone further than in South Korea, where the president has called on the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to investigate the country’s failure to advance to the round of 32, one of South Korea's most disappointing World Cup campaigns in decades.
“I feel not just confusion but utter bewilderment at this unexpected outcome,” President Lee Jae Myung wrote on X on Sunday. “I am deeply sorry for causing such profound disappointment to the public over this absurd affair. We will swiftly push forward with reforms to sports administration to ensure such a thing never happens again.”
The issue at hand is clear, according to Lee’s post: “When favoritism and cronyism take precedence over competence in selecting a commander, the result is as predictable as fire burning paper,” he wrote — pointing back to head coach Hong Myung-bo’s controversial appointment in July 2024.
The selection of Hong sparked speculation about favoritism because the Korea Football Association abruptly selected him after months of pursuing foreign candidates. Critics questioned the transparency of the hiring process, and a government audit later found that the KFA had violated several of its own hiring procedures, fueling allegations of preferential treatment. The audit, however, did not conclude that Hong himself had acted improperly, and Hong himself denied receiving special treatment.
Ultimately, Hong remained as head coach because the authorities concluded that while the appointment process was procedurally flawed, there was no legal basis to cancel his contract. But it explains why the public’s criticism against their national soccer team has been so concentrated on the coach, whom many view as an illegitimate appointment. Hong has already announced his resignation, but that hasn’t soothed the ire of Korean fans. Many believe that the results would have been different if a coach had been selected through a proper hiring process — and it seems the president may believe so as well.
While the political repercussions of South Korea’s team losing may seem shocking, it isn’t an unreasonable overstep: Public funds account for about 30 percent of KFA’s budget. In addition, one of the defining goals of Lee's presidency has been to strengthen transparency and accountability in both private and public sectors, which is why the opaque procedures of KFA were more likely to catch the administration’s eye. Despite Korea’s political divisions, lawmakers from across the political spectrum have voiced their common desire to reform KFA.
While South Korea is the most far-reaching example of political fallout from a World Cup exit, it is not the only country where politicians have become involved in the messy aftermath. In Turkey, football federation president İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu reportedly called on Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç to prosecute fans who insulted the national team following its elimination.
The incident also came after the national team's official account shared a promotional video from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's ruling Justice and Development Party, prompting accusations that the federation had blurred the line between sport and politics. The team's elimination only deepened that political entanglement.
The two cases reflect different understandings of accountability, but with one common denominator: the belief that the World Cup is more than just a run-of-the-mill sporting event.
This U.S. government official cozies up with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who has already made inroads with the Trump administration due to a highly publicized presidential bromance.
That’s FBI Director Kash Patel, chatting it up with Infantino and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Colombia v. Portugal match on June 27, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Foreign-born players are increasingly a fixture of teams across the World Cup. In Switzerland, which faces off against Algeria tonight, the politics of a progressively diverse population have literally been on the ballot as the tournament unfolds.
Last month, just days after the first World Cup games kicked off, voters in Switzerland weighed in on an initiative from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party that would have capped Switzerland’s population at 10 million people until 2050. Under the proposal, a series of strict immigration controls would come into place as soon as the population crossed the 9.5 million mark. (It’s currently around 9.1 million.)
The vote came as the country’s national team took the field reflecting one of the soccer world’s most ethnically diverse player pools. Sixteen of the 26 players, or 62 percent of the team, have family roots from abroad, according to data compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace. (Only France, England, Canada and Australia had higher percentages in that category.) Three of Switzerland’s 26 players were born abroad themselves.
It’s a distinctive feature of Swiss politics — and its robust system of direct democracy — that proposals like the “No to a Switzerland with 10 million!” initiative appear directly before voters. As often as four times a year, voters are confronted with federal, state and local proposals. (In 2024, they even weighed in on whether to ax public funding for Eurovision.)
In the end, 55 percent of voters rejected the initiative. For the time being the question of Switzerland’s multiculturalism will be on the field but off the table.
Despite Cristiano Ronaldo’s travails, Portugal heads into tonight's World Cup knockout match against Croatia as a strong contender to win this year’s tournament. Victory in Toronto tonight would keep it on track for the latter stages — and reinforce a national brand that has consolidated the Atlantic country as a powerhouse far beyond the soccer field.
Portugal is home to just over 10 million people and has a modest economic footprint, but the small European nation has a remarkable track record when it comes to placing its candidates in top posts around the world.
Within the EU, Portugal stands out as having had more of its candidates occupy top institutional posts than any of the bloc’s other member countries. Since 1986, Portuguese citizens have served as president of the European Commission, the Court of Auditors, the Eurogroup, the Committee of the Regions — and former Prime Minister António Costa currently presides over the European Council. There has also been a Portuguese EU ombudsman, a vice president of the European Central Bank and nine vice presidents of the European Parliament.
Beyond the bloc, former Prime Minister António Guterres currently serves as United Nations secretary-general. And just last month the country scored a fresh diplomatic victory by beating out the larger, wealthier and more globally influential Germany to secure one of the vacant, nonpermanent seats on the U.N. Security Council.
According to former Portuguese Secretary of State for Internationalization Bernardo Ivo Cruz, Lisbon’s decision to go after top jobs on the global stage is an existential matter.
“After democracy was restored following the 1974 Carnation Revolution, we realized that our survival as a country depended on multilateralism: we’re too small to guarantee our strategic interests, and those of our citizens, on our own,” he said. “To do that, we needed to guarantee the world remained a place governed by the rule of law.”
The former diplomat said Portugal had worked hard to establish itself as a fair player that is capable of speaking with everyone on equal terms. “Being a small country is actually an advantage, because no one is afraid of us, and that makes us nonthreatening interlocutors,” he noted.
Thanks to its nearly 900-year history, Portugal has long-standing relationships with nearly every other nation. The bonds are especially strong with Portuguese-speaking former colonies like Brazil, Macau and Cape Verde, parts of the world with which Lisbon has worked to forge ties based on equal terms. And those good vibes among allies have been instrumental in having Portuguese candidates confirmed to posts where neutrality and a respect for the rules of diplomacy are paramount.
“The candidates that secure these top posts aren’t supposed to unfairly benefit their home countries,” Cruz noted. “But they benefit Portugal in a broad sense because they defend that multilateralism that benefits all countries, including our own.”
The matter, he added, was taken so seriously in Portugal that the country’s politicians had a habit of backing their candidates for international posts no matter what their politics might be.
“Our stance is that we never mix up internal drama with things happening beyond our borders,” he said. “You may hate someone in Lisbon, but the moment they’re up for an important post it becomes a matter of defending the interests of the state, and personal issues have no relevance there.”
Beyond political institutions like the U.N. or the European Council, Cruz said Portugal had a vested interest in the kind of soft diplomacy that plays out in sporting events like the World Cup.
“Evidently, if we end up winning this match, it only reinforces our country’s international prestige, and is a cause for celebration,” But, he added, “whatever happens, I think this edition of the World Cup is turning out to be a success for everyone.”
“Rather than hooliganism, what we’ve seen are the Scots marching through U.S. cities with their bagpipes and kilts, the Norwegians delighting American spectators with their rowing rituals,” he noted. “At a moment of such immense global tension, we all win by having this competition be defined by friendly celebration.”
Indeed, in much the same way that the small European nation is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to football, it also punches far above its weight in terms of broad international influence.
BELGRADE, Serbia — When Croatian supporters flooded Toronto and Philadelphia this summer, draping city halls in the red-and-white checkerboards found on the Croatian coat of arms and belting out one power ballad after another, the loudest songs, as always, belonged to Marko Perković.
“He’s become an inseparable phenomenon anytime Croatia plays or participates in any kind of competition, especially sporting events,” said Hrvoje Klasić, the leading Croatian historian focused on the legacy of World War II.
“People both at home and abroad view him as synonymous with love for one’s country,” he continued.
Better known as Thompson, after the submachine gun he carried in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, he is the country’s most popular singer — and its most enduring embarrassment.
Croatian fans have made his song, “Lijepa Li Si,” the unofficial anthem of the team and a fixture at every match, a song whose chorus salutes the wartime Croat statelet in Bosnia whose leadership was convicted of war crimes.
Thompson’s wider catalog is more explicit still. One track opens with “Za dom spremni,” the salute that functioned as Croatia’s answer to “Sieg Heil” during the World War II Ustashe regime.
In the past, his concerts have been banned or canceled in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, Austria and Germany.
None of this is fringe within Croatia, however. Last summer Thompson drew more than 500,000 people to a single Zagreb concert, the largest in the country’s history, where fans chanted the same Ustashe slogan while the authorities looked away.
In 2018, when Croatia nearly won the World Cup, the second-placed team was welcomed back with Thompson aboard the victory bus and star midfielder Luka Modrić personally asking for him to perform.
Croatia has spent three decades declining to reckon with the Ustashe past, treating the fascist puppet state’s symbols as heritage rather than crime.
Across post-communist Europe, the end of the Cold War brought a wave of historical revisionism, as nations that felt their identity had been suppressed under communism recast neo-Nazi and far-right figures as patriots. Hungary, Ukraine and the Baltic states, as well as Croatia, have all made a version of this bargain, folding once-condemned nationalists into their modern national myths.
“These nations believe they were robbed of their national identities in the past century or are dissatisfied with their country’s present achievements, so they reach back into the past for themes from a more distinguished past,” Klasić concluded.
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