World Cup Meets American Federalism: Infantino Navigates Local Rules in North America

FIFA president Gianni Infantino confronts the realities of hosting the World Cup across a patchwork of U.S. states and localities, where decentralized governance, licensing, transportation costs, and visa rules complicate operations more than in autocratic hosts, prompting friction with New York–New Jersey hosts and signaling how local politics and border-state rivalries shape the tournament’s rollout, logistics, and fan access while climate, visas, and geopolitics add extra layers of challenge.