Sorry, Mr. President—FIFA, Not the White House, Picks the Cities.

This is one of those fascinating cases where politics collides with the weird, semi-sovereign bubble that global sport lives in. FIFA isn’t just a sports organization it’s a little like a wandering state of its own. It makes its own rules, signs binding contracts with cities, and wields billions of dollars of leverage. When a president (any president) hints at reshuffling host cities eight months before kickoff, that’s like trying to steer an oil tanker with a canoe paddle: it’s not going to happen without colossal fallout.

Victor Montagliani’s pushback is basically FIFA reminding the world: “We are the boss of this circus, not you.” And it’s true. Once a host agreement is signed, cities, states, and federal governments are locked in to provide things like police protection, streamlined visas, and infrastructure guarantees. But the actual where and when of the games? That’s FIFA’s sandbox.

It’s also worth noting the historical irony here. Previous hosts Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Qatar had their own safety, political, or human rights controversies. Yet FIFA still went forward. By comparison, cities like New York or LA aren’t exactly uncharted territory for global events. If FIFA could weather a World Cup in Johannesburg or Rio, it’s hard to imagine them pulling out of Los Angeles because of a presidential soundbite about crime.

At its core, this spat is symbolic: Trump is using the World Cup as another platform for his “law and order” brand, while FIFA is flexing its autonomy as a global powerbroker. Montagliani’s line about football being bigger than governments is almost utopian football as a kind of secular religion, transcending borders and politics. Romantic, maybe, but also a not-so-subtle way of saying: “Mr. President, we’ll take your security cooperation, but the schedule is ours.”

The more interesting angle is how fragile the balance is between FIFA and host nations. FIFA depends utterly on state machinery security forces, border control, public funding yet insists it alone controls the spectacle. It’s a strange marriage of convenience: the world’s most popular sport hitching itself to the clout of states, while claiming to float above them.

This whole episode feels less about whether games will move (they won’t) and more about a spotlight on FIFA’s strange, quasi-political authority. The World Cup is always more than sport it’s a stage where nations, leaders, and organizations all jockey to show who’s really in charge.