The most political World Cup ever?

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1:10I'm John Murray. And this is a special programme in which I've got together with some of the BBC's other favourite podcasts, Newscast and AmeriCast. I have been to seven World Cups. This will be my eighth. It feels as though politics have been involved in almost all of them, as well as the football. But this may well be the biggest example of that yet, which is saying something. There is so much to discuss. For this, before I fly off to Mexico for the opening match, we've got together with newscasts Adam Fleming and AmeriCast's Mariana Spring and Anthony Zerka. so this will be the first of three episodes that look at the politics going on around the World Cup and if Football Daily fans want to hear the other two go to the Newscast or AmeriCast feeds to listen and also subscribe if you like what you hear but for the moment we hope you like this one

2:15Adam Fleming:Hello it's Adam in the Newscast studio

2:17Marianna Spring:and it is Marianna sitting next to Adam in the Newscast studio And it's Anthony in the BBC Bureau in Washington, D.C. And this is John sitting at my desk where I am putting my final preparations to what I'm planning to use once I get to the World Cup for our commentaries.

2:34Adam Fleming:John, does that mean you have a big binder? That's a stationary item very close to my heart. I'm looking around my desk here, Adam, and I've got piles of paper. I've got the current edition of World Soccer. I've got Diego Maradona's autobiography. and I've got various other books and files. So the answer is yes. Marianna's just got her phone, which has fallen out of her pocket. That was what that little thud was. She's got everything on one device.

2:58Marianna Spring:No books or bookshelves, unfortunately.

3:01Adam Fleming:Right, we're recording three episodes. This is the first one. We're doing it on Thursday, the 4th of June, and it is the afternoon, just so you know what the world looks like as we're recording this episode right now. And this first in our three-part series, we're going to look at kind of the genesis of this World Cup. How did it end up being in Canada, the USA and Mexico, which is quite an unusual situation. And also this intriguing relationship. I don't want to call it a bromance because that's a bit of a cliche now. Between the two presidents, Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino of FIFA, because that is an interesting story in itself.

3:32Adam Fleming:So, John, when did you realise you would be spending this summer in North America? Yeah, well, it was when it was announced that it would be the very first World Cup that was to have three hosts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. And the reason for that is it is the biggest World Cup that there's ever been. So it's been expanded by FIFA to include 48 teams. So it'll take place over 39 days. That's as opposed to the 32 days it would take under the previous format. And I think as well, most significantly in terms of the number of matches, now 48-team World Cup means 104 matches compared to 64 in the previous recent editions of the World Cup.

4:20So teams these days will have to get through eight matches to win it instead of seven. So that's it. It is very simply the biggest that there's ever been.

4:30Adam Fleming:And Mariana, because it's America and it's so polarised and Trump is so dominant as a political figure, this is like, I don't know, the Oscars, the Met Gala, whatever. There's a Trump element to it, irrespective of what we're actually talking about as the substance of the thing.

4:45Marianna Spring:Yeah, and I think that's actually why so many people are quite engaged with this, even who aren't that fussed about football. I mean, I say this as like I'm very obsessed with football. But quite a lot of people I've been talking to and getting messages from who've been spotting stuff on their social media feeds and saying, oh, like this is coming up about the World Cup. So much of that content is about the politics rather than the sport itself. And I think it'll be quite interesting to see when the World Cup actually gets going, how much the politics eclipses the football or not. Maybe everyone will just love the football and the politics will end up being separate.

5:15Marianna Spring:But I think some of the tensions we're expecting mean that that might not be the case.

5:18Adam Fleming:And Anthony, obviously, I mean, it's exciting that it's coming to your home turf. But I just wonder, has this come to your turf as a political journalist as well? Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been keeping my eye on this ever since the United States was announced as one of the co-hosts of the World Cup. And then when Donald Trump was reelected in 2024, it occurred to be very early on that he's going to be president, not only during the Olympics in 2028 and America's 250th birthday celebrations this July, but also the World Cup. He loves being center stage. He loves being the person, particularly with sporting events.

5:56He's had a connection to sports for most of his adult life, owning a sports football, American football franchise, being involved in boxing. So you knew he was going to inject himself right into the middle of this. And with Donald Trump comes all of the divisiveness, all of the politics, all of the chaos that he has brought to politics ever since he first ran for president in 2015.

6:21Adam Fleming:Although, John, I just wonder with you as a veteran, and I mean that in a nice way, that actually this is maybe nothing new because loads of World Cups take place against a backdrop of controversial things, usually in the host country. Yeah, I'll take that in the manner intended. Yeah, as I say, I have personally been to seven of the World Cups. This is the 23rd. And really, actually, since the very first one in 1930 in Uruguay, I mean, politics played a big part in that, in the fact that it was decided to be in Uruguay, who had one of the strongest national teams at the time. But if you think back, the next one, 1934 in Italy, Mussolini was all over that one.

7:06And the first one I can properly remember watching on the television when Scotland were famously there, Ali's Tartan army in 1978. And I've actually got my World Cup 78 Panini sticker book here with me as well, which I almost filled up. But I remember it as an 11-year-old watching being absolutely wrapped by it on the television with the ticker tape coming down and just the feel of it and the sort of blurry television pictures. It felt like such a long way away. But, of course, in later years, you know, I've learned that Argentina was being run by a military junta at the time. It was a dictatorship.

7:45And, you know, they really ran the show. And, you know, it was almost as political as any World Cup had been at the time in 1978.

7:53Adam Fleming:Other brands of stickers and collectibles are available. Now, when I think back to the World Cups that have happened, while I've been a professional journalist, I think of Qatar in 2022, where quite a lot of migrant workers died when they were building the infrastructure. And then the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, which was obviously before the World Cup happened in Russia in 2018. and when you talk to people about their memories of those tournaments, they talk about the football, they don't talk about the controversies in the build-up to the tournament.

8:26Marianna Spring:Yeah, and I think that in the build-up especially, there's a lot more analysis and critique and reflection on the politics and what it'll mean and how it will unfold. And we saw that in the build-up to both Russia and Qatar. But once the football gets going, I think the question, I think this is the big question for the United States And I'm sure, Anthony, you've got lots to say about this, you know, thinking about where there could be flashpoints, if there's any gun violence, if there are any issues around ICE and immigration raids and that sort of thing. I think it's whether there's any aggro that unfolds during the tournament itself that could dictate whether we talk about politics.

9:04Marianna Spring:Because if you think of Russia, for example, or Qatar, largely, although there was controversy before those tournaments, they ran pretty smoothly and there weren't any problems.

9:13Adam Fleming:And Anthony, we'll dig into some of those issues in this episode and in future episodes as well, because this is a three-part miniseries we're doing, so we've got plenty of time. But Anthony, just give us this kind of the origin story of this World Cup. Like, why did the three countries get together in the first place? Well, I think part of it was because the scope of this World Cup was much bigger. As John mentioned, more teams that this was going to be one of the biggest World Cup in the tournament's history. They needed to be able to produce it over a much wider piece of real estate. We had had joint World Cups before.

9:50Obviously, Japan and South Korea hosted a World Cup. But this one with the United States, with Mexico, with North America, they all pitched the idea together. They thought this would be a unifying type of proposal. These three countries that were closely connected geographically, but also by their trade relationships, that they would be able to put on the kind of show that would befit this much larger World Cup undertaking. So it was quite a proud moment for, I think, all three countries in the beginning. And I think they saw this as an opportunity to put together a unified front and put their best foot forward.

10:29Adam Fleming:And when you read the original bids document, which is this huge doorstopper of a book that they put together to win the bid a few years ago, the theme that just keeps coming out of that. You don't need to be a football expert. It's just that all the stadiums or stadia, we should say, are already built. There's loads of hotels. There's loads of airports. This is a ready-to-go pre-packed World Cup set of venues that Morocco, who were competing in that bidding process, just couldn't match, really, John. Yeah, that's right. It's a little bit like a political manifesto, isn't it? The bid document.

11:04You can always go back, can't you, and say, well, what about this? What about that? What's in the bid document doesn't always turn out to be exactly what happens on the ground. But, you know, with the USA as the mainstay of the bid against Morocco, who tried and tried and tried and failed and failed and failed. And actually, since then, they will be hosting the next World Cup, along with Portugal and Spain. So they will get their chance next time round. But yes, that was the infrastructure that existed in the United States and in Canada and Mexico, you know, was a strong deciding factor, I feel, particularly when you look back to other recent World Cups, when it's been a real rush to get the stadiums finished.

11:50Although in saying that, I do know that in Mexico City, they've updated the Azteca Stadium. And I know that's a little bit of a race against time to get that ready for the start of the World Cup.

11:57Adam Fleming:Good, good. There's a challenge Anika subplot because you do need that in the build up to all major sporting events, even if the hosts claim everything's ready to go. Anthony, also in that big book, the kind of the big slogan that they keep pushing is unity, certainty, opportunity. Well, certainly two of those three things have been in short supply in North America in the two Trump presidencies. Yeah, it's been a difficult time for U.S.-Mexico-Canada relations, even in Donald Trump's first term with what he was doing on the U.S.-Mexico border and the crackdown and the call to build a wall. But particularly now in this second term, which started in January of last year, because Donald Trump focused on tariffs and trade and the two countries or two of the first countries he targeted with tariffs were Mexico and Canada, two of the United States's biggest trading partners.

12:50That alone would have been disruptive and that alone would have cast a shadow over this tournament. But you throw in Donald Trump calling for Canada to be America's 51st state, referring to then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Governor Trudeau. And the back and forth between these two countries where Canada took all of America's liquor products off their shelves. The United States reprised with their own additional tariffs and it has made for some unfriendly relationships. And you actually see it with some of the Canadian attitudes towards other countries. Mark Carney, the current prime minister, giving speeches abroad that directed his country to move in a different direction than the United States and start exploring other relationships outside of what had been the close U.S.-Canada relations.

13:39Relations with Mexico are still tense because of border concerns, immigration concerns and and crackdowns of undocumented migrants who have come into the United States through Mexico. So all of that puts puts the relations not on a unified kind of a footing that I think they had hoped that this World Cup would would produce. I would say, Adam, by the way, that having been at the draw in Washington for the finals, which planned out the whole schedule that we have, typical politics, they were all on the stage together. Donald Trump, Mark Carney, Claudia Scheinbaum, Gianni Infantino. You know, they were, you'd think that they were the greatest of mates.

14:22And that was just a few months ago. And so, you know, they have to get along for the sake of the World Cup.

14:29Adam Fleming:Also, Mariana, I'm just thinking if you were going to watch all 104 World Cup matches, and if anyone was going to do that or was able to do that, it would be you, I think, that I know. 78 of those matches are in the US, 13 each in Canada and Mexico. So actually, it's going to feel like a very USA heavy World Cup.

14:46Marianna Spring:Yeah, and I would say as well that a lot of the kind of outward, a lot of the content we're seeing in the messaging. I mean, to be honest, if you were Mexico and Canada, you might be a bit annoyed, really, because you've kind of been slightly lost in that. I think particularly because of the political context and because Donald Trump is such a sort of advocate for the US hosting the World Cup. the noise that I'm seeing certainly in the social media world but beyond is very much focused on the USA and not really on the other places and you're suddenly like oh hang on a second this match is in Mexico City or this is happening in Canada and if you were them you'd be thinking hang on a sec we are actually a bit involved but like you point out less involved in the US and that kind of explains why so much of the focus is on America.

15:29Adam Fleming:Although John I mean Mexico I mean they've got their own place in world cup history host the history books yep this is the first time that any country will hold matches in three men's world cup tournaments and actually they've held a women's world cup as well so that is also a record to host four senior world cup tournaments and the aztec stadium where the opening match will be played is one of the iconic venues for the World Cup. If you were to put together a showreel of, I don't know, the top 20, 25 moments of the World Cup, probably four or five of them would be inside the Aztec Stadium, which is where we saw the Diego Maradona hand of God goal in 1986.

16:16Both Pele and Maradona have won the World Cup in that stadium. You know, England have a great history there as well, because they played there during the course of the 86th World Cup before that match against Argentina. And, you know, it is one of the iconic venues. Yeah, I'm here in the United States and I remember the hand of God goal in 1986. That was one of my first World Cup memories. It made headlines here in the US, even before soccer really took off in the United States. It's something that people, rank and follow, people paid attention to.

16:49Adam Fleming:Although, Anthony, America's history of hosting the World Cup, mainly in my teenage mind, was Diana Ross missing a penalty at the very lavish opening ceremony in 1994. I'm sure there was much more spectacular football than that the following weeks, but the thing that lodged my mind was that image. Yeah, that wasn't the best start to it, obviously, but it was the first chance for America to see a World Cup up close. And I will say that a lot of Americans really got into it and enjoyed it. You know, America usually doesn't pay attention to the rest of the world unless it's right in front of their noses.

17:23And this puts soccer right in front of our noses. And it helped launch the MLS, Major League Soccer League, that is still going on and has expanded and has quite a following here in the United States now. And I remember there was a July 4th knockout round game between the United States and Brazil in that tournament. And on the 4th of July, the United States playing, it was quite a celebration. And I actually went to a game here in Washington, D.C. because it hosted some opening round games and a knockout round game. I saw Spain beat Switzerland in the knockout round. And so it pulled a lot of Americans in despite the kind of rocky start that it got off to with those opening ceremonies.

18:04Adam Fleming:And I rewatched the clip of Diana Ross doing the penalty. And in defense of Diana Ross, she actually is not that wide of the goal. It's pretty close. And also she is singing live in a massive ceremony. and then she goes onto a stage to do the rest of the show. So she had other things on her mind. And also she didn't present herself as like top female athlete. She was like top singer. Anyway, so that's my defence of Diana Ross. It was the tournament that started and finished with a missed penalty because Roberto Baggio missed the penalty that decided it for Brazil. And it started with Diana Ross's missed penalty in the opening ceremony.

18:39Marianna Spring:Poetic, John. Pop and football are two passions combined.

18:44Adam Fleming:right let's talking of celebrities um john just introduce me to the fifa president gianni infantino who is actually becoming i feel sort of more and more of a global character yeah and i think part of that is his very close relationship with donald trump um you know he was seen as the man who would bring to fifa you know he'd change everything after the set blatter years and and everything that we associated with that and and and that he would clean up fifa clean up the world game and um he's very much done it his own way and i think i don't think it would be an understatement to say that he enjoys the power and there is immense power of being the the fifa president so you know i'm not sure when eventually his time in that role will come to an end and i have a feeling that if he's able to extend it as long as he possibly can, he would do that.

19:44And anyone that has been circling, who is seen as a potential successor, just seems to have melted away. He is an extremely powerful man, possibly the most powerful man in world sport.