The World Cup Is 72 Days Away. LGBTQ+ Fans Are Already Saying They Won't Come.

What Amnesty Actually Found

On March 30, 2026 — 72 days before the tournament kicks off in Mexico City — Amnesty International published a 36-page report titled "Humanity Must Win: Defending Rights, Tackling Repression at the 2026 FIFA World Cup." Its central finding: the United States, which will host 78 of the tournament's 104 matches, is facing conditions that put fans, players, journalists, and workers at serious risk.

The report's language is unusually direct. It calls the US a country experiencing a "human rights emergency," citing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, the rollback of protections for LGBTQ+ people — particularly transgender and gender-diverse individuals — and what it describes as "mass detentions and arbitrary arrests by masked, armed agents" from ICE and the US Customs and Border Protection agency.

Amnesty's specific concerns about the World Cup are threefold. First, it says none of the host city plans published by the three countries have addressed how fans will be protected from ethnic profiling, indiscriminate immigration raids, unlawful detention, or deportation during the tournament. Second, it warns that LGBTQ+ supporters face a US legal environment that has deteriorated sharply since FIFA awarded the hosting rights in 2018. Third, it documents that fans from at least four of the 48 qualifying nations cannot legally enter the United States at all.

"This World Cup is very far from the 'medium risk' tournament that FIFA once judged it to be," the report states. "Urgent efforts are needed to bridge the growing gap between the tournament's original promise and today's reality."

The LGBTQ+ Problem: What's Changed Since 2018

When FIFA awarded the 2026 hosting rights to the US-Canada-Mexico bid in June 2018, the United States had a different legal landscape for LGBTQ+ people. Federal employment non-discrimination protections had been extended to LGBTQ+ workers by the Supreme Court's 2020 Bostock ruling, and executive policy broadly protected transgender people in federal settings.

Since January 2025, much of that has been reversed. A series of executive orders have removed federal protections for transgender people in military service, healthcare, housing, and government employment. Multiple states have passed laws restricting gender-affirming care, banning transgender athletes from sports, and restricting which bathrooms transgender people can use. World Cup matches will be held across 11 US host cities — Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Boston, Dallas, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the New York–New Jersey metropolitan area — in states with varying levels of legal protection.

The practical result, according to Amnesty, is that England's LGBTQ+ supporter group and a network of LGBTQ+ fan organizations across Europe have publicly stated they will not attend matches on US soil. They cited risks to transgender supporters "in particular," according to multiple news reports citing the Amnesty findings. These groups have not said they will boycott the entire tournament — which also has matches in Canada and Mexico — but have drawn a specific line at US venues.

FIFA's own rules include an anti-discrimination protocol that has been invoked to punish national teams for homophobic chanting. The Mexican Football Federation has been sanctioned multiple times by FIFA for exactly this behavior at matches involving its national team. But Amnesty argues that off-pitch protections — from government policy rather than FIFA match officials — are absent.

Mexico, one of the co-hosts, presents its own separate concerns. Amnesty's report cites it as the second most dangerous country in the world for transgender people, with 59 transfemicides recorded in 2024. Canada, the third host, has its own documented issues with discrimination against transgender youth, the report says.

ICE at the World Cup: What the Acting Director Actually Said

The most concrete element of Amnesty's concerns is not speculative. ICE's acting director told Congress directly that the agency will be "a key part of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup." Amnesty cited this statement in its report, alongside documented concern from fan groups that immigration enforcement will be integrated into World Cup security in a way that targets people based on nationality and ethnicity rather than criminal conduct.

The scale of ICE operations has grown substantially since Trump returned to office. Analysis of official government data conducted by the New York Times — cited in the Amnesty report — estimates that ICE and CBP deported more than 500,000 people in 2025, Trump's first full year in office. That figure includes approximately 230,000 arrested inside the United States and 270,000 at the border.

As of March 19, 2026, ICE had signed 1,544 so-called 287(g) agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies. These agreements deputize local police officers to enforce immigration law and allow local jails to be used for immigration detention. Among the jurisdictions with active 287(g) agreements: Dallas, Houston, and Miami — all World Cup host cities.

Amnesty also documented the proximity of immigration detention facilities to FIFA's own headquarters. The Krome North Service Processing Center is located within 20 miles of FIFA's Miami offices. The Everglades Detention Facility — known colloquially as "Alligator Alcatraz" after its remote swamp location — is within 50 miles.

The report calls on FIFA and the host governments to issue public guarantees that World Cup venues, events, and fan gatherings will not be targeted for immigration enforcement. As of publication, no such guarantee exists.

Four Nations Whose Fans Can't Enter the US

Beyond the LGBTQ+ concerns and immigration enforcement fears, the Amnesty report documents a separate problem: fans from at least four of the tournament's 48 qualifying nations face US travel bans and cannot attend matches on American soil at all.

Those four nations are Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti, Iran, and Senegal. All four have been subject to US entry restrictions under Trump administration executive orders or State Department travel policies. For Iran, the situation is particularly sharp given the ongoing US-Iran military conflict that began February 28: Iran itself is uncertain about whether it can send its national team to the tournament, with FIFA saying as recently as mid-March that the 48-team lineup would proceed as planned despite the conflict.

Senegal's situation has its own specific dimension: just days before the Amnesty report was published, Senegal's parliament passed and the country's president was expected to sign a law sharply increasing criminal penalties for same-sex relations — raising sentences from one to three years up to five to ten years, and extending punishment to those accused of "promoting or financing homosexuality." This law, signed into Senegalese domestic politics even as its national football team prepares for a World Cup it won the rights to attend, creates a scenario in which Senegalese fans traveling to the US face an administration hostile to their nationality, and American LGBTQ+ fans supporting Senegal's team navigate competing political signals from both governments.

FIFA's Position and Its Revenue Stakes

FIFA's response to the Amnesty report was measured. The governing body said this month that the tournament would proceed as scheduled with all teams participating. It has not responded directly to the specific concerns raised about LGBTQ+ safety, ICE integration into security, or the four nations whose fans cannot enter the US.

The financial stakes for FIFA are significant. The organization is expected to generate approximately $11 billion from the 2026 tournament cycle — by far the most in World Cup history. The expanded 48-team format, being deployed for the first time at this tournament, means more matches, more venues, and longer sponsor exposure windows. An estimated 6.5 million fans from across the world are expected to attend. Ticket revenue alone is projected in the billions.

FIFA awarded Trump a "Peace and Sport" award in December 2025, a decision that drew sharp criticism from human rights organizations at the time. The Amnesty report is the most direct challenge yet to FIFA's stated commitment to inclusion, which has been a core part of its public branding since the controversy over its 2022 Qatar World Cup. In Qatar, FIFA banned the display of rainbow flags inside stadiums; in the US, it faces a different but structurally related challenge — a host government whose policies, Amnesty argues, effectively exclude the people FIFA's inclusion language is supposed to protect.

"While FIFA generates record revenues from the 2026 World Cup, fans, communities, players, journalists and workers cannot be made to pay the price," said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International's head of economic and social justice. "It is these people — not governments, sponsors or FIFA — to whom football belongs and their rights must be at the centre of the tournament."

The NBA Parallel: Jaden Ivey's Waiver

The Amnesty report landed the same day as a domestic sports flashpoint that illuminated exactly the cultural fault line FIFA is now navigating. The Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivey on Monday for "conduct detrimental to the team" — hours after Ivey posted a 45-minute Instagram livestream in which he delivered anti-LGBTQ statements, calling the NBA's celebration of Pride Month an endorsement of "unrighteousness."

"The world proclaims LGBTQ, right?" Ivey said in the livestream. "They proclaim Pride Month. And the NBA, they proclaim it. They show it to the world. They say, 'Come join us for Pride Month,' to celebrate unrighteousness. They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets."

Ivey, the fifth overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, had delivered a series of religious rants on social media in recent weeks, including an impromptu postgame sermon after being traded to the Bulls from Detroit in February. The Bulls' decision to waive him — terminating a guaranteed contract — within hours of the latest livestream was interpreted by ESPN and The Athletic as the organization drawing a clear line on speech it deemed incompatible with the team's values and the NBA's anti-discrimination commitments.

The Ivey situation and the Amnesty report are separate events — one is an individual sports figure's comments, the other is an institutional human rights assessment. But both landed on the same trending hashtag for the same underlying reason: a country in which institutions at every level — federal government, state legislatures, sports teams, fan groups — are actively defining where they stand on LGBTQ+ inclusion, 72 days before the biggest sporting event in the world arrives.

What Amnesty Is Asking For

The Amnesty report includes a specific set of demands directed at FIFA, the US government, and the host cities. Its asks include:

On LGBTQ+ protection: That FIFA, host governments, and host cities implement effective anti-discrimination measures, including anti-discrimination campaigns and proper enforcement of FIFA's anti-discrimination protocol during matches. That LGBTQ+ fans be given public guarantees of safety at all tournament venues and events.

On immigration enforcement: That ICE and CBP end what Amnesty describes as indiscriminate raids, ethnic profiling, arbitrary arrests, mass detention, and unlawful deportations. That FIFA and the US government issue a public guarantee that World Cup venues, events, and fan gatherings will not be targeted for immigration enforcement. That host city human rights plans be updated to address these concerns before the tournament begins.

On freedom of expression: That fans be guaranteed the right to express support for their teams — including through rainbow flags and other symbols — inside and outside World Cup venues, without government interference.

As of the report's publication date, none of these guarantees have been issued. The tournament opens in 72 days.

The Record

• The 2026 FIFA World Cup runs June 11 to July 19, across 11 US cities, 2 Canadian cities, and 3 Mexican cities — 104 total matches.
• The US hosts 78 of 104 matches, including the final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
• 6.5 million fans are expected to attend the tournament across all host countries.
• FIFA stands to earn approximately $11 billion from the 2026 tournament cycle, a record.
• ICE deported more than 500,000 people in 2025, per analysis cited by Amnesty International.
• As of March 19, ICE had signed 1,544 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement, including in Dallas, Houston, and Miami — all World Cup host cities.
• England's LGBTQ+ fan group and European LGBTQ+ supporter networks have publicly stated they will not attend matches in the United States.
• Fans from Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti, Iran, and Senegal face US travel bans that would prevent attendance at US matches.
• Mexico recorded 59 transfemicides in 2024; Amnesty calls it the second most dangerous country in the world for transgender people.
• The Chicago Bulls waived Jaden Ivey on March 30 for "conduct detrimental to the team" after anti-LGBTQ livestreams.