“Abusive, discriminatory and deadly”: Amnesty report highlights human rights risks at the 2026 FIFA World Cup including travel bans and ICE abuses
A new report published by Amnesty International, with the support of FairSquare, set out the serious risks to millions of football fans attending the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the USA, calling on the hosts and FIFA to urgently act in the face of what it calls “a human rights emergency and a recognizable pattern of authoritarian practices.” in the United States
FairSquare and the University of Amsterdam Business and Human Rights Clinic provided research support for Humanity Must Win: Defending rights, tackling repression at the 2026 FIFA World Cup which details significant risks to and impact on fans, players, journalists, workers and local communities in all three host countries. The report highlights three key areas of risk: free expression and assembly; abusive immigration enforcement and border control; and discrimination against LGBTQI+ people.
The report highlights serious human rights risks in Canada and Mexico, but the majority of its analysis focuses on the United States , where the majority of games will be played. Amnesty offers a damning assessment of the risks.
“Armed agents are breaking down doors, detaining children and have deported hundreds of thousands of people. LGBTQI+ fan groups say it is not safe to have a visible presence, and supporters of four qualifying countries are barred from entering the country.”
The report’s findings underscore FIFA’s abject failure to respond to the entirely foreseeable decline in the human rights situation in the US since the tournament was awarded, and should be set in the context of systematic failures to engage with and mitigate human rights risks associated with previous and future tournaments.
FairSquare was one of many NGOs that documented the abuse of workers who constructed the stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 finals in Qatar and FIFA’s failure to insist on either better protection or compensation.
A 2024 report by Amnesty International, which FairSquare provided research support to, also highlighted potential risks related to the 2030 and 2034 editions of the tournament, which will take place in Saudi Arabia In relation to the latter, FIFA and the Saudi Arabian Football Federation excluded from their human rights risk assessment any analysis of Saudi Arabia’s record on multiple critical human rights such as freedom of expression, LGBTI+ discrimination, the prohibition of trade unions, or forced evictions.
