The heads of the North American 2026 World Cup bid committee hosted a conference call with the media on Monday. Not surprisingly, they were asked about whether President Trump’s denigration of immigrants has hurt the bid’s odds of success.
“We believe strongly that this decision will be made on its merits,” U.S. Soccer Federation president and bid co-chair Carlos Cordeiro said. “This is not geopolitics — we’re talking about football, and what is fundamentally, at the end of the day, the best interest of football and our footballing community. … We’ve had no backlash.