- I think, you need to keep two things in mind separately.

Donald Trump is trying to use the World Cup to become the star of the show.

Infantino is an unaccountable autocrat.

On the other hand, the World Cup is a beautiful experience.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to goal!

I mean, GZERO World.

I'm Ian Bremmer and for those of you living under a rock, the 2026 World Cup kicks off this week.

See what I did there?

And for the next month, the biggest sporting event on the planet will descend on North America.

More than a million international visitors are expected to travel to US host cities alone, generating roughly $1.5 billion in tourism spending.

FIFA meanwhile, on track to rake in a record-breaking 13 billion in revenue, not that they're counting.

For nearly a century, the tournament has served as a mirror of the world around it, showcasing fascism in Italy, ultranationalism in Argentina, post-apartheid rebirth in South Africa, and soft power in Qatar.

But what does this year's World Cup tell us about the state of the world today?

My guest, Financial Times columnist, Simon Kuper, he's a veteran World Cup reporter and author of the book, "World Cup Fever".

We discussed the enduring magic of the World Cup despite the lackluster soccer, not to mention FIFA's wanton corruption, and how the teams competing bring out the best and the worst of the country's cheering them on.

Don't worry, I've also got your Puppet Regime.

- The United States is the world leader in artificial intelligence.

Watch this.

Hey, AI, am I trapped in a terrible situation in Iran?

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Narrator] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains, with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Narrator] And by... Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is investing in the future, working to create an impact in advanced recycling, and in emerging technology companies that will help shape tomorrow.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Carnegie Corporation of New York, Koo and Patricia Yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And... (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Have see in the hand of God?

I'm not referring to that famous work of art by the Italian master, Michelangelo.

I mean, in the other masterpiece by the Argentine legend Maradona.

Picture this.

It's the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City, and it's six minutes into the second half of the quarter-final match between Argentina and England.

An English defender deflects an incoming ball back towards his own goal.

As shown in the 2019 documentary Diego Maradona, Argentina's attacking midfielder soars through the air of the penalty box.

With the referee's view blocked by the goalie, Maradona raises his fist to head level and punches in the ball.

(crowd cheering) The referee allows the goal to stand.

There's no virtually-assisted replay in 1986.

There's no internet.

And Diego Maradona, the crowd, and 30 million Argentines erupt in unison.

The English are not happy.

(crowd cheering) (whistle shrilling) (car horn honking) Argentina would go on to win the match and soon after, their second World Cup.

And asked later whether the goal was legitimate, Maradona famously said it was scored, "A little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God."

But Argentina's ecstasy and England's fury ran far deeper than the soccer pitch.

Four years earlier, England's military humiliated Argentina's armed forces in the brief but brutal Falkland's war.

Maradona later called his flagrant cheating a, "symbolic revenge against the English."

He had achieved on the soccer field, what his country had failed to accomplish on the battlefield, and they forever loved him for it.

This is why the World Cup is the planet's most popular spectacle.

For a few months, every four years, billions of us tune into an alternate reality where Argentina is a soccer superpower and the United States is lucky to make it out of the group stage.

China doesn't even figure.

- [Commentator] A perfect movement has led to goal number one by Tommy Taylor.

(crowd cheering) (upbeat music) - The World Cup has always been popular, it's always been political, but as it returns to North America for the first time in decades, it has never been this profitable.

FIFA, the wildly corrupt organization behind the tournament, projects it will make as much as $13 billion on the 2026 World Cup.

One big piece of that is broadcast rights, another is ticket sales.

In Miami, the cheapest ticket for a group stage match is $960.

Last year's Super Bowl, which we don't care about as much, was only $950 for the baseline ticket.

That kind of price gouging deserves nothing less than a yellow card.

So, why do we allow such people to run the world's most beloved sporting event?

How much will the US overshadow it's too co-hosts, Canada and Mexico?

And which country's team has the best chance of winning?

I'm breaking it all down with one of the smartest voices on what we really should just call football, Financial Times sports columnist Simon Kuper, and he joins me now from Paris.

Simon Kuper, thanks for joining us today.

- It's a pleasure to be here.

- You have said that people love the World Cup despite the football, and I'm wondering what you mean by that.

- Most of the football at this World Cup will be worse than say the Champions League or the English Premier League, the top level of the game.

There are teams coming like Cape Verde, or Jordan, or Curacao that really will play quite mediocre soccer with 48 teams.

The level has never been lower.

But the World Cup has never really been about quality, certainly not anymore.

It's about, you know, the nation is at stake.

It's a prestige battle for all countries in which the US doesn't win, and which China barely figures.

So, it is about so many things beyond good soccer.

- Who are the countries that most understand, that most engage with it as nations, both the country itself as well as the people from all over the world, and why?

- I mean, I'd pick out Argentina and Brazil.

I mean, Argentina has obviously, had an unsuccessful 80 years as a political and economic entity.

And this is the one global hierarchy where Argentina is top of the world.

You know, they're world champions.

They have possibly the best player ever, Leo Messi.

And so, it's an enormous source of national identity.

What is Argentina?

It's Leo Messi, it's Diego Maradona.

Kind of exemplifies this Argentinian creativity that they feel they have.

Brazil was that before.

Brazil has won five World Cups, more than any other country.

And the national team shirt, that yellow shirt, is such a symbol of Brazil that it was used by, you know, the previous president Jair Bolsonaro, while he was campaigning.

He's kind of captured the main item of identity of the country for his own party.

So, I would say those two countries, more than any other, expressed their national pride through soccer.

But really, you know, in the post-war decades when war was very scarce, that was the main competition between nations.

- And how far down before you start talking about Europeans?

- Well, Europeans, other than Argentina, Western Europeans have dominated the World Cup for the last 20 years.

So, if you look at who finishes first, second, and third on the podium, the last 20 years, it's seven European countries and Argentina.

So, Western Europe is 5% of humanity.

Croatia's just the other side of the old Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe.

The whole rest of humanity, 95% of humanity the last 20 years has produced one team that can compete with the best Europeans.

That's Messi's Argentina.

So, the Europeans are fantastic, but I would say that for countries like France, Germany, Spain, in the past, Italy, they no longer even qualifying, the kind of leading European countries.

Football is hugely important, and expression of football nationalism is hugely important.

I'd put it still a touch below Argentina and Brazil though.

- I mean, a lot of what you have said for someone that isn't inside this world, I would think would also apply to the Olympics.

How does it and how does it not?

How's the World Cup different?

- I think, the World Cup has surpassed the Olympics in popularity.

The TV rights deals are now higher.

And I've been to Olympics and I've been to World Cups.

The fans are just much more engaged with the actual play during World Cups.

There are way more people who understand soccer and how it works and sort of understand shot-putting or have a deep appreciation of 100 meters, even.

So, people's engagement with football is very intense.

And because it's not just one player like in many athletic events, it's a whole team, you get a sense that, that team represents the country in a very direct way.

So, when you see those 11 guys in an England shirt or in a Brazil shirt, they incarnate England or Brazil with all its strengths, with all its flaws.

And it's also a picture of who belongs in the country.

So, a big issue in many Western European countries over the last 40 or 50 years is that the national teams progressively became less white.

You know, people of immigrant origin entered those teams.

So, France is now a majority non-white team, and that leads to all these debates about who is part of France, who is part of Frenchness, and those debates are channeled through the national football team.

- And I was going to ask you precisely that.

When you mentioned, you know, Bolsonaro sort of takes on the jersey as part of his campaign strategy, is it effective or is it divisive for an individual political leader in a country that is becoming much more divisive to say, "I'm taking on this national jersey for myself.

And by the way, I don't think that a lot of the other people that are in this country really reflect true Brazil," for example.

- I mean, absolutely, in a very divided country like Brazil, you take a national symbol, maybe the national symbol, the yellow canary shirt, which is associated with Pele in 1970 and greatness, and you turn it into a partisan item, so much so that going into the 2022 World Cup just after Bolsonaro had been voted out of power, it was difficult for anti-Bolsonaristas to wear the shirt, because they felt it had become associated with him.

So, in an extremely divided society like the US as well, everything becomes a culture war.

I would say that in countries like the Netherlands or Germany, which have their own divisions, but less stark, the national team is still something that unites society.

I've just come from the Netherlands, extremely proud World Cup tradition, reached the final three times.

And their whole streets will be decorated in orange.

And you can go around wearing an orange shirt.

And people will do just as part of their daily business and it will be something that everybody will smile warmly at.

But yeah, in our divided societies of today, even the national team becomes divisive.

- Now, the United States has a lot of sports that they care about.

Soccer/football has never seemed to break through, but I'm certainly seeing a lot more people coming to stadiums for the professional league right now.

And there is excitement around the World Cup, including in my own New York City.

I mean, do you think that football is on a trajectory in the United States to have the kind of electrifying impact on the population that it does in so many other countries around the world?

And why or why not?

- I think, US soccer is already a big cultural phenomenon.

It's just different from in other countries, because in most countries people care about the national league and the national team.

In the US, some people do.

So, major league soccer is, you know, is a relatively modest league.

But of course, there's loads of people in America whose primary interest is English football, Mexican football, whichever country they come from.

Look at Zohran Mamdani, your mayor in New York.

He's a very good example.

He's a massive Arsenal fan.

- [Ian] Yeah, wearing the shirt all the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

And he also has very deep knowledge of African football, which he can talk about in great detail.

And he's becoming, he's setting himself up as a kind of populist soccer politician, you know, turning the high prices of tickets into an affordability issue, which switches agenda.

So, I think, Mamdani is an emblem of where many US soccer fans are.

They're not actually interested in US soccer.

- So, the Iranians are playing in this Cup and including a game in the United States.

Their players are flying up to Seattle.

I guess it's going to be on Pride Day.

So, both Iran and Egypt.

It's one of the most interesting geopolitical events.

What should we watch for there?

Do you think there's a possibility that folks could defect?

Do you think that security is an open question?

I mean, you know, the Americans are obviously, at war with this country right now.

- Yes.

I mean, the Iranian Federation, which is run by a former Revolutionary Guard leader is terrified there will be defection.

Several players of the Iranian women's team defected recently to Australia.

- To Australia, yeah.

Yeah.

- So that is a possibility.

There's so much to watch.

Iran were originally going to have their training camp in the US, but obviously, that was not going to be a good idea.

So they moved it to Tijuana in Mexico.

And they'll be flying up to their three games.

Now, they play one or two games in Los Angeles, which obviously, has a huge exiled Iranian population.

There'll be a lot of protests from Los Angeles Iranians against the regime.

And then brilliantly, in Seattle, the Egypt-Iran match, as you say, has being proclaimed the gay pride match by Seattle and an elements of Pride Week in that city.

Neither the Iranian Federation nor the Egyptian Federation was pleased about that.

But Seattle's kind of showcasing, "This is America, everybody is welcome here."

And so yeah, there'll be immense flashpoints and I think, the one that every soccer fan is rooting for, if the US and Iran both finished second in their group and they play against each other in the second round in Dallas, which I think would be the geopolitical derby of all time.

- [Ian] That would be absolutely incredible.

Who would likely win a match between the Americans and the audience?

- It would be quite low quality.

Home advantage is worth about one goal a game.

So, between two poor teams, I think, the US would would inch that.

- If populations are turning out for their teams, very few people are turning out for FIFA, which seems to have become emblematic for graft and access to power, indifference to human rights, and all sorts of other issues that are not what we think about when we think about human excellence on the football pitch.

How has FIFA lost their way, and how bad is it?

- I'm not sure FIFA was ever different.

I mean, the second World Cup was hosted by Benito Mussolini's Italy in 1934.

The Argentinian military junta hosted in 1978, Vladimir Putin in 2018.

So, FIFA has always been happy to give the World Cup to any autocrat.

It has never shown particular concern for human rights.

I think, the difference this time is because it's in the us, the country that's used to paying the highest prices for sports tickets in the world, they have tried to take advantage of that by charging extortionate ticket prices, which was never in the World Cup tradition.

There was always this idea that the World Cup was a kind of international public good that everybody should be able to access, if they loved soccer without paying terribly high prices.

You know, there'd be a few extremely expensive tickets for sponsors and so on, but mostly, you could get into almost any World Cup game in the past for under $100.

And in the US they've thrown that out the window.

They're charging these extremely high ticket prices.

And it's a kind of test of whether the public and the soccer-supporting public will bear that, because it's so much against the tradition of the World Cup.

But yeah, FIFA is run a lot like an autocracy.

And of course, in our world today, that's become a much more common thing.

So Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, he consorts with people like Mohammed bin Salman, Vladimir Putin at World Cups.

Now, with Donald Trump, Trump spent more time with him than any leader of a country last year, 2025.

And Infantino runs FIFA much like a lot of autocrats run their country.

He runs it pretty much solo.

If you wanna know what FIFA's doing, the best place to follow it is on his personal Instagram account.

He earns a salary of over $6 million.

He never gives press conferences, hasn't given one for three years.

So, he is totally unaccountable.

He ignores the public, he ignores the media, and he seems to exist in this circle of leaders of countries.

And he's always forever sucking up to Trump in a way that most football fans probably find grotesque.

- So, you weren't surprised at all when he decided to give this FIFA Peace Prize that had never existed before to the American president?ú - It's the act that everybody cites as the kind of symbol of everything that's wrong with this World Cup, and I feel that as well.

But no, it's not surprising.

I mean, the thing about FIFA is they themselves always felt they should get the Nobel Peace Prize, because the idea of FIFA is always football brings peace.

Being president of FIFA is like being president of the country, but better, because you represent the nation of football.

Sepp Blatter, the previous president, desperately wanted the Nobel Peace Prize.

So, I think, Infantino was very well placed to understand Trump's personal desire and obsession with that prize.

- Why are there no consequences for the leader of FIFA to act with indifference to the broader public that ultimately, they do rely on for the success of their sport and their league?

- Well, in the same way that Vladimir Putin or Mohammed bin Salman are unaccountable, the public doesn't elect Infantino.

Infantino's responsibility is to the 200 plus presidents of national federations, you know, from the US Soccer Federation, to American Samoa, or Liechtenstein, they all have one vote And a lot of these federations have no money coming in at all, except from the World Cup.

And his offer to those presidents and federations is, "I'm going to bring in as much money as possible from the World Cup, including through ticket prices.

I'll channel loads of it to you.

If you, the presidents of a national federation wanna stick that in your back pocket or in your personal bank account, nobody is going to check up.

On the other hand, if you feel like it, you can invest it in building soccer fields, training coaches."

And so these presidents, they elect him based on what he gives them and what soccer fans think is totally immaterial to Infantino or FIFA.

- Now, I want to talk at least a little bit about the World Cup that's coming up right now.

And it's not just in the United States, it's also in Mexico and Canada.

I've seen a lot of politics in Mexico, big demonstrations from the teachers, for example, all over the country trying to use this as a moment that they can gain a lot of their own political demands.

How much of this is going to be a Mexican Cup and or a Canadian Cup, or is it really the Americans that are going to dominate what we see going forward?

- Well, the US has three quarters of the World Cup and it has all the good games.

All games from the quarter-finals on there in the US.

So, I see it as the US is chief host and then there's small franchises in Canada and Mexico.

Now, of course, the US is always in the eye of the world, so is not particularly interested in the global spotlights.

That means nothing to the country.

Canada and Mexico, for them, it's a very exciting moment to present themselves to the world to be seen by other countries.

And that's also true for protest movements, like the one you mentioned.

So, protest movements always get into World Cups, and I think, we'll see that in the US as well, anti-Trump, anti-ICE protests.

I see it as very much primarily a US World Cup though.

- So, for people that are watching this, like myself, that aren't necessarily ongoing diehard football fans, they now have access to you, one of the world's leading experts on this issue, period.

How should we watch the cup?

What should we engage with?

What would create the best experience for us from your perspective?

- I think, you need to keep two things in mind separately.

Donald Trump is trying to use the World Cup to become the star of the show.

Infantino is an unaccountable autocrat and we should totally shine the spotlights on them and understand what they're doing.

On the other hand, the World Cup is a beautiful experience.

It unites the country.

You know, in a lot of countries, the most watched television programs of all time are matches of the national team.

That would be true in France, England, Holland.

So, a whole country is united.

It unites the world in a way.

It's like a religious feast for the whole world and for people of all religions.

And everybody kind of suspends the, you know, the hard work, the daily slog, and enjoys the party.

People support the Cinderella teams.

The whole world will cheer, if you know Cape Verde put a ball in the top corner.

And so, I think, people need to look at the ugliness off the field and enjoy the beauty and passion on it, and it's possible to do both those things.

- So, this is twice you've kind of said Cape Verde as expected to do literally nothing on the pitch, right?

Is there any possibility that they could win a match?

- They're playing Saudi Arabia, which has often been the worst team of the World Cup in the past.

So yes, it is possible.

I would not bet on it.

I mean, there've never been as many kind of Cinderella teams as this time with the likes of Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan.

And yes, I mean, there's always a Cinderella that comes good, most famously Cameroon in 1990.

And they have this beautiful run to the quarter-finals that the whole world enjoyed.

So, there will be a team like that this time.

I would not put any money on Cape Verde though.

- And your expectation to win it all, Simon?

- Well, my predictions are always wrong, but also World Cups are impossible to predict, because there's a huge random element.

Most games in the knockouts are decided by a single goal or penalty shootouts.

With that caveat, France and Spain are probably the best teams in the world, but even they, you know, the prediction markets give them less than one in five chance each.

So, who knows?

It's random.

- Simon Kuper, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Now, to Puppet Regime where world leaders have some words of encouragement for the teams as they compete in the World Cup.

- The United States is the world leader in artificial intelligence.

Watch this.

Hey, AI, am I trapped in a terrible situation in Iran?

- [AI] Trapped?

The only thing you're trapped in is possibilities for long-term greatness.

And honestly, you're so real for that.

Want to make a video of yourself as Jesus Christ with wings and a bucket of fries?

Just say the word.

- So great.

- My isolation grows by the day.

You might be my only friend, Ai.

Talk to me.

(AI speaking Russian) - You mean for me?

(AI speaking Russian) - Thank you.

- Hey, AI, could you turn me into a Labubu?

- [AI] I have optimized the injection molding capacity across 14 factory nodes.

Additionally, I have identified six more corrupt officials within the Ministry of Defense.

- EU AI, how can Europe become a great power again?

(EU AI clicking) I said, how can Europe become a?

- [EU AI] Sorry.

(EU AI speaking foreign language) - I said, how can Europe?

- [EU AI] EU AI is currently on vacation.

We are not taking prompts until September.

Goodbye.

- [Choir] Puppet Regime!

- That's our show this week, come back next week, and if you like what you've seen, or even if you don't, because the World Cup isn't your thing, you prefer Finland's wife-carrying world championship.

Yes, that is a thing.

Then check us out gzeromedia.com.

(bell pinging) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (bright music) - [Narrator] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint, and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Narrator] And by... Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is investing in the future, working to create an impact in advanced recycling, and in emerging technology companies that will help shape tomorrow.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Carnegie Corporation of New York, Koo and Patricia Yuen committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And... (upbeat music) (upbeat music)