The World Cup comes broken. Can football fix it again?
“The World Cup is a true celebration of football and humanity.”
Oh, Peter Drury. We’ve come a long way since 2010.
Usually, the last few days before the World Cup are reserved for important debates. Who are the favorites? Is this finally Lionel Messi’s last dance? Can Cristiano Ronaldo do it again? Which teenager will become the next soccer superstar? Which dark horse is about to ruin someone else’s summer?
Until 2026.
This time, many supporters seem to be almost as concerned what could go wrong in the tournament like what might happen on the field.
That seems like a strange sentence to write about the World Cup.
For generations, this tournament has been a spectacular football event that comes every four years and drives fans into a frenzy. This is the month when a game temporarily convinces us that nothing else matters as much as a perfectly balanced 90 minutes plus added time.
Yet as FIFA World Cup 2026 finally approaches, football’s biggest celebration brings a level of baggage that only a few editions have had to deal with before.
At the center of it all is the geopolitical tension that has steadily crept into the tournament’s orbit. The ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran has turned what should have been a routine preparation for the World Cup into something much more complicated. Iran and other teams had to deal with visa issuesLogistical uncertainties and even forced teams to relocate their preparation sites and questions of who can enter the host country and under what conditions became a big part of the build-up. The US leg of the 2026 FIFA World Cup was a logistical nightmare. (Photo by Reuters)
And Iran is hardly alone.
From visa disputes and supporter travel restrictions to security concerns, ticket price controversies and mounting questions about availability, much of the build-up has felt like football sharing newspaper space with other global politics news.
Yet football has a habit of defending itself.
When the lights go up at the Estadio Azteca and Mexico take on South Africa after the opening ceremony with Alejandro Fernandez, Tyla, J Balvin and Ryan Castro, none of these stories will be able to score a goal.
Football is finally coming back to the scene.
Whether he can regain full conversation over the next month is just a waiting game. Despite the chaos before kick-off, the World Cup atmosphere managed to survive. (Photo by Reuters)
CHAOS WORLD CUP
Former England and Arsenal legend Ian Wright recently described this tournament as the “World Cup of Chaos” and to argue with it is war itself.
With a massive dose of sympathy for FIFA’s business heads at the time of writing this should have been a safe World Cup.
The tournament was awarded to three countries with established infrastructure, huge stadiums and decades of experience in hosting major sporting events. Compared to some of the controversies that surrounded Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, North America was supposed to represent stability.
Instead, the buildup left every football fan with a sour taste of hype.
Iran’s training plans were disrupted. Somali referee Omar Artan, who was set to become the first official from his country to work at the World Cup, has been denied entry to the United States. Fans from several participating countries publicly shared stories of visa complications, despite already spending significant sums on flights, accommodation and flights.
Then there’s the issue of tickets.
For years, fans have dreamed of experiencing the World Cup in North America. Many quickly discovered that the dream came with a terrifying bill attached to it. Dynamic pricing, soaring accommodation costs, expensive transport and a resale market that often seemed detached from reality all contributed to frustration among traveling supporters.
There is even a strange contradiction hanging over the tournament. FIFA is talking about record revenues and record attendances, yet thousands of tickets remain available for certain group stage matches just days before kick-off.
Few can argue that when it comes to the World Cup, it is easy to predict that football will still be great.
However, there is no escaping the fact that the road to this World Cup was much more complicated than anyone expected.
WHAT THE FIFA WORLD CUP MEANT
Perhaps that is why it is worth remembering what the World Cup has often been when football is at its strongest.
In October 2005, Ivory Coast qualified for their first ever FIFA World Cup.
At the time, the country was divided by civil war.
Didier Drogba and his teammates could simply celebrate the qualification. Instead, they gathered in the locker room, looked directly into television cameras and appealed for peace. The players dropped to their knees and begged other Ivorians to lay down their arms. This World Cup makes the Drogba-led Ivory Coast story a distant memory. (Reuters)
It remains one of the most extraordinary moments in sports history.
For a brief moment, football achieved something politicians had been trying to achieve for years.
The World Cup has always carried this unique ability.
That’s why people still remember where they were when Zinedine Zidane dazzled in 1998, when Andrs Iniesta broke Dutch hearts in Johannesburg, when Mario Gtze took control of a great nation’s dream in Rio or when Lionel Messi finally finished football in Qatar.
The tournament has always been about more than football.
Twenty-one years after Drogba used football as a tool for unity, sport’s biggest event comes as it grapples with talks of borders, visas, access and geopolitics.
An irony worth shedding a tear for.
WILL NOISE RULE THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP?
Probably not.
Because football has spent decades proving it has a superpower, few things in the world can match it.
It’s distracting.
Soon the conversation will move away from visas and ticket prices and back to Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappa, Neymar, Jude Bellingham, Lamine Yamal and all the other storylines that make the World Cup irresistible.
Argentina arrive looking to defend their crown. Spain is popular with many people. France have enough attacking talent to scare anyone. Brazil believe that Carlo Ancelotti can restore the old glory. England are once again trying to convince themselves that this really could be the year. Ronaldo and Messi’s last dance is the big headline of this World Cup. (Photo: Reuters)
For Indian fans in particular, the commitment to watching this World Cup borders on the absurd. Almost 90 percent of matches will start between midnight and sunrise. This screams how sleep plans will be destroyed, followed by caffeine-fueled work hours.
Yet millions will do it anyway.
Tomorrow morning, offices across the country will be filled with people with dark circles under their eyes and giant smiles on their faces. Someone will replay a miracle goal or a referee’s call.
And that’s why, despite all the hype surrounding this tournament, it would be foolish to bet on football not winning again.
FIFA WORLD CUP 2026: ALL 12 GROUPS
It comes with a list of great chaos as long as the fixture list of this World Cup.
FIFA expanded the tournament to 48 teams in 2026. The new format features 12 groups of four teams, replacing the familiar set-up of eight groups. From there, the top two teams in each group and the top eight third-placed teams advance to the newly introduced Round of 32, opening the door for more countries, more knockout drama and, inevitably, a few surprises.
* Group A: Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Czech Republic
* Group B: Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Qatar, Switzerland
* Group C: Brazil, Morocco, Haiti, Scotland
* Group D: United States of America, Paraguay, Australia, Turkey
* Group E: Germany, Curaao, Ivory Coast, Ecuador
* Group F: Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, Tunisia
* Group G: Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand
* Group H: Spain, Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay
* Group I: France, Senegal, Iraq, Norway
* Group J: Argentina, Algeria, Austria, Jordan
* Group K: Portugal, DR Congo, Uzbekistan, Colombia
* Group L: England, Croatia, Ghana, Panama
WHERE CAN FANS IN INDIA WATCH THE 2026 FIFA WORLD CUP?
Fans in India can watch all 104 matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Zee’s Unite8 Sports TV channels, while live streaming will be available through the Zee5 app and website after the broadcaster secured the rights shortly before the tournament began.
– The end
Issued by:
Debodinna Chakraborty
Published on:
11 Jun 2026 08:04 IST