{"id":543037,"date":"2026-03-17T20:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/543037\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T20:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:26:12","slug":"former-germany-soccer-coach-joachim-low-voices-safety-concerns-about-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/543037\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Germany soccer coach Joachim L\u00f6w voices safety concerns about World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Germany head coach Joachim L\u00f6w arrives for the Women’s Euro 2025 final match between England and Spain at St. Jakob-Park in Basel, Switzerland last July.Martin Meissner\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Former Germany coach Joachim L\u00f6w has raised concerns about safety at the World Cup being hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had debates before the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and calls for a boycott before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. But playing in a country that is actively at war is even more dangerous,\u201d L\u00f6w told the Cologne Express newspaper in comments published Tuesday. \u201cThe political situation completely overshadows the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S.-and-Israeli war with Iran is ongoing, and a wave of violence followed the Mexican army\u2019s killing of cartel chief Nemesio Rub\u00e9n Oseguera Cervantes, \u201cEl Mencho,\u201d last month.<\/p>\n

FIFA says no plans to move Iran’s World Cup matches from U.S. to Mexico<\/a><\/p>\n

L\u00f6w, who led Germany to the World Cup title in Brazil in 2014, spoke on Monday evening at an event, focused on previous World Cups, with Rainer Bonhof, who helped West Germany win the 1974 tournament, and other World Cup winners.<\/p>\n

Attention turned to the upcoming tournament near the end of their discussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know if you should play at all,\u201d Bonhof said to loud applause, Express reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the current circumstances, for me only Canada is a neutral country,\u201d Bonhof said of the co-hosts. \u201cI don\u2019t want to boycott any World Cup \u2013 we\u2019re too fond of football. But we really need to think about security measures, which we haven\u2019t considered yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonhof, who is currently the president of Bundesliga club Borussia M\u00f6nchengladbach, said he \u201cwouldn\u2019t have any urge to go\u201d to Mexico because of the security situation there.<\/p>\n

The German soccer federation in January ruled out a boycott of the World Cup despite calls from within at the time to send a message to U.S. President Donald Trump. That was before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Former Germany head coach Joachim L\u00f6w arrives for the Women’s Euro 2025 final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,561,82,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-543037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}