\u201cBy my reckoning,\u201d Gottlich said, \u201cthe potential threat is greater now than it was then. We need to have this discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Politicians in Britain and France had already raised the idea of a World Cup boycott. But now the whispers are growing into a chorus.<\/p>\n
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A makeshift memorial is placed on Sunday in the spot where Alex Pretti was fatally shot by U.S. Border Patrol officers a day earlier in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
(Adam Gray \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Nearly two dozen European football association heads held informal talks in Budapest<\/a> last week to discuss their participation in the World Cup. A veteran coach of several African national teams urged a boycott, and a United Nations diplomat and international law expert has canceled his World Cup tickets, fearing for his safety in the U.S. amid violent federal immigration crackdowns in Minnesota<\/a> and other cities throughout the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cICE may decide that I am a gang member and I\u2019ll be locked in prison for a year with no charges, no hearing, no trial, no right to consult a lawyer, no phone call,\u201d Mohamad Safa, the Lebanese-born executive director of the U.N. organization Patriotic Vision, wrote in a social media post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s killing of Alex Pretti<\/a>, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was the second fatal shooting by federal agents in 16 days in Minneapolis. Since September, federal immigration officers have shot 12 people<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S.,\u201d Safa wrote \u201cis not safe to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n What worries soccer officials, politicians and diplomats isn\u2019t just ICE\u2019s aggression. It\u2019s also the mercurial and unpredictable actions of President Trump, who in the last month ordered the extraction of the president of Venezuela<\/a>, threatened military action against Iran<\/a>, fired on fishing boats in the Caribbean, paused U.S. visa applications for citizens of 75 countries and demanded Denmark hand Greenland over to the U.S.<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cSeriously, can we imagine playing the World Cup in a country that attacks its neighbors, threatened to invade Greenland, disregards international law, wants to undermine the U.N. [and] establishes a fascist and racist militia in its own country?\u201d asked Eric Coquerel, a member of the French parliament representing the left-wing La France Insoumise party.<\/p>\n FIFA officials declined to comment when asked about the growing calls for a U.S. World Cup boycott.<\/p>\n Coverage of the violence in Minnesota<\/a> is leading the evening news and driving debate in Europe, said Andrew Bertoli, an assistant professor at IE University in Segovia, Spain, and an expert on the social and political effects of sports. <\/p>\n A sign is raised in support of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota, at a candlelight vigil at the federal building Saturday night in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n (Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cThe view that I\u2019ve seen over here is one of great concern for what\u2019s happening in the U.S.,\u201d said Bertoli, who was educated at UC Berkeley and Notre Dame and held a postdoctoral fellowship at USC.<\/p>\n Regardless of the level of shock or surprise, however, Bertoli doesn\u2019t believe a boycott is warranted.<\/p>\n The last World Cup, Bertoli notes, was held in Qatar<\/a>, an energy-rich constitutional monarchy where freedom of association and expression is heavily restricted and thousands of migrant workers are held in conditions that have been likened to slavery or servitude. The one before that was played in Russia<\/a>. <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769559669_167_.jpeg\")
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