{"id":431220,"date":"2026-01-26T18:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/431220\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T18:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:23:12","slug":"sepp-blatter-suggests-fans-should-not-travel-to-us-for-world-cup-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/431220\/","title":{"rendered":"Sepp Blatter suggests fans should not travel to US for World Cup | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Former Fifa president <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/sepp-blatter\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sepp Blatter<\/a> on Monday suggested he supports fans boycotting World Cup matches in the United States this year due to security concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Blatter gave his support to comments from Swiss anti-corruption lawyer Mark Pieth, who worked with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/fifa\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fifa<\/a> on potential reforms when Blatter was president, saying fans should stay away from the US for the tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cI think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup,\u201d Blatter said on social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Pieth cited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jan\/22\/renee-good-autopsy-ice-minneapolis\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the killing of protester Renee Good<\/a> by an American immigration agent in Minneapolis earlier this month as one reason for supporters not to travel to the US. Blatter\u2019s endorsement of Pieth\u2019s comments comes in the wake of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jan\/24\/alex-pretti-minneapolis-minnesota-shooting\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the death of a second US citizen<\/a>, Alex Pretti, last weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The World Cup is due to be hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico from 11 June to 19 July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cWhat we are seeing domestically \u2013 the marginalisation of political opponents, abuses by immigration services, et. \u2013 hardly encourages fans to go there,\u201d Pieth said in an interview with Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cFor fans, just one piece of advice: avoid the United States! You\u2019ll get a better view on television anyway. Upon arrival, fans should expect that if they don\u2019t behave properly with the authorities, they will be immediately sent home. If they\u2019re lucky \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Blatter stepped down as Fifa president in 2015 amid several scandals and was replaced by Gianni Infantino, who has forged close ties with Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Blatter and former Uefa chief Michel Platini were last year <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/mar\/25\/former-fifa-president-sepp-blatter-and-michel-platini-cleared-in-corruption-case\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acquitted definitively<\/a> on charges stemming from a delayed payment of 2m Swiss francs ($2.5m) Fifa made to Platini in 2011 for consultancy services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Former France star Platini said earlier this month that Infantino has \u201cbecome more of an autocrat\u201d and \u201che likes the rich and powerful\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter on Monday suggested he supports fans boycotting World Cup matches in the United&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-431220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}