A joint report from the Sport & Rights Alliance and Football Supporters Europe has concluded that the 2026 Men's World Cup revealed a gap between FIFA's stated human rights commitments and its actual conduct, with revenue generation appearing to take precedence over those obligations.
The 50-page report, titled "Profit Over People: The 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup," details a tournament in which attendees, players, and journalists encountered barriers tied to economic standing, nationality, immigration status, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and political circumstance. That backdrop included mass immigration detentions and deportations, visa restrictions along national lines, cost and access obstacles, unresolved safeguarding and eligibility standards, and an absence of effective remedy mechanisms. Sport & Rights Alliance Executive Director Andrea Florence stated in the report that FIFA's leadership placed commercial interests above the welfare of those involved, and that participation across the tournament was constrained by a broad range of personal and structural factors.
Critics contended that FIFA not only passed up an opportunity to apply its institutional leverage in support of human rights commitments, but went further by conferring an unvetted award titled the "FIFA Peace Prize" on U.S. President Donald Trump — a decision characterised by some as lending institutional weight to a government whose record on those same commitments remained under scrutiny. The 2026 Men's World Cup was a 48-nation, 104-match tournament jointly hosted across Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and the largest multi-nation sporting event of its kind. It was staged under a framework that included FIFA's 2017 Human Rights Policy, human rights criteria embedded in the bidding process, and a dedicated FWC26 Human Rights Framework covering 16 local host committees, with FIFA having pledged that the tournament would be one where every participant "feels safe, included and free to exercise their rights."
More than 65,000 people added their names to an Amnesty International petition pressing FIFA and the host nations to address reported human rights risks and deliver a tournament accessible to all. A passage quoted in the report, drawn from an unidentified source, put forward the view that commercial revenue targets were weighted above human rights obligations.
Amnesty International's policy adviser Frank Conde Tangberg stated that immigration enforcement operations increased, gatherings were dispersed, and restrictive visa requirements prevented numerous attendees from experiencing a tournament that had been promoted under an inclusivity banner. The organisation further noted that while many of the underlying problems traced back to government-level policies, FIFA did not deploy its institutional influence to shield supporters and host communities from those conditions.
The report outlines how a combination of high ticket costs, onerous visa fees, restricted travel connections between venues, and entry barriers affecting nationals of more than 39 countries narrowed the realistic options for attendance among people on lower incomes, those living with disabilities, and visitors from less affluent regions.
Travel and administrative obstacles affected multiple participants. Iranian national team members encountered delays or outright blocks on their U.S. visa applications, and for two fixtures the squad was required to arrive and leave on the same calendar day. Somali official Omar Artan — who held a valid visa — was turned away at Miami International Airport after spending eleven hours in questioning.
Human Rights Watch documented more than 167,000 detention actions by federal immigration authorities across and near the eleven cities slated to host World Cup fixtures, a volume of enforcement activity that formed part of the environment in which those obstacles arose ahead of the tournament.
The report noted that arrests by immigration enforcement within World Cup stadiums drew limited press attention, yet detention figures across the broader country climbed notably over the course of the tournament — among them a five-day stretch in late June during which approximately 10,000 individuals were taken into custody. The document additionally recorded incidents in Mexico where police deployed tear gas against planned protests and two journalists were held in detention.
Ronan Evain, Executive Director of Football Supporters Europe, put forward the view that fans had been positioned primarily as a commercial asset rather than as participants central to the sport itself. He cited record ticket prices, unmet accessibility provisions for supporters with disabilities, and what he characterised as visa denials applied on discriminatory grounds alongside heavily militarised border procedures, as indicators that the event had functioned more as a restricted gathering than a widely accessible one.
Host cities saw enforcement sweeps move people without permanent housing away from event areas, while visa applications — a majority of them filed by nationals from lower-income countries — were turned down by immigration authorities at a rate that outpaced approvals.
Unanswered questions persist about whether FIFA upheld its own tournament-entry rules — provisions that reportedly obligate players to declare any history of investigation for sexual or other violent offences — given that no fewer than eight athletes with pending assault cases or allegations took part in the 2026 World Cup, all under the governing body's direct authority.
Access to independent reporting around the tournament was constrained by several overlapping obstacles, including opaque accreditation procedures, barriers tied to entry visas, and a near-absence of scheduled briefings with senior officials. Clayton Weimers, who leads Reporters Without Borders USA, noted that the country hosting most of the matches had dropped from 45th to 64th in RSF's Press Freedom Index over recent years, with journalists encountering detention, deportation, and physical harm during that period. He added that ambiguity around media credentialing, a failure to coordinate with visa authorities, and an apparent indifference to press briefings pointed to gaps in FIFA's stated commitments to human rights standards.
The Sport & Rights Alliance and Football Supporters Europe are calling on FIFA and all candidates standing in the 2027 presidential election to adopt a package of reforms. Those reforms include binding human rights obligations embedded in host agreements for every future Men's and Women's World Cup, underpinned by independent oversight and defined consequences where those obligations go unmet; a transparent, survivor-centred framework governing eligibility for athletes and officials facing allegations of misconduct or sexual violence, replacing the current approach of deciding matters individually and without consistent criteria; non-discriminatory access to future tournaments for fans, athletes, journalists, and accredited participants, with freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and press freedom protected throughout FIFA competitions; equal ticketing arrangements and complimentary companion seating for supporters with disabilities, alongside measures to prevent exploitative pricing; and reforms to FIFA's grievance and remedy structures, including restoring a permanent, independent Human Rights Advisory Board, a comprehensive overhaul of the FIFA Ethics Committee, and the creation of a standing Remedy Fund for individuals and communities affected by tournament operations past and present.
Florence stated that the lesson drawn from the 2026 World Cup is that human rights considerations need to be built into every stage of how tournaments are awarded, planned, contracted, monitored, and delivered, and that senior leadership at FIFA and comparable sport governing bodies need to be prepared to act, particularly when circumstances shift.
