00:02FIFA president Gianni Infantino must love the view from Trump Tower.
00:06He rents a Manhattan office there, wears MAGA ties and is called by Donald Trump, the king of soccer.
00:13I call it soccer, you know, it's just easier to do because we have football and they have two footballs,
00:19right? They call it football.
00:20But while the football elite rub shoulders in Washington, the game is hitting a metaphorical and physical wall at the
00:27US border.
00:28You see, the international teams, referees and everyday fans find it a bit difficult to see the games which start
00:34today.
00:35What is going on there?
00:39FIFA expects to pocket more than 3 billion dollars from ticket sales and hospitality alone.
00:44But corporate pricing has broken the marketplace.
00:47Ticket packages to follow a team to the final are now estimated to cost five times more than four years
00:54ago.
00:54On top of that, nearly 180,000 tickets are flooding the official resale market and median resale prices have plunged
01:03by 20% in a single month.
01:05But the biggest bust is happening at the border security checkpoints.
01:09Infantino's sports diplomacy means nothing to US immigration officers, enforcing hard travel bans against four qualified nations, including Iran and
01:18Somalia.
01:18And US border agents just locked Somalia's top referee in a cell for 11 hours before throwing him out of
01:25the country.
01:26Iraq's star striker was detained in Chicago for seven hours.
01:30And currently the Iranian squad is stranded, training across the border in Tijuana because Washington refused visas to 15 members
01:38of their staff, including the head of the Football Federation.
01:41So it looks like the very definition of a global sporting event is being rewritten before our own eyes.
01:48The opening week proves that football does not unite the world.
01:52It is national borders and strict immigration laws that are defining who gets to play and who stays at home.
01:59So can FIFA hold this World Cup together?
02:01Tune in on tonight to find out as Mexico opens the tournament playing against South Africa.
02:07Oh, and remember, Euronews will be covering the games and the whole political sideshow surrounding them for you.
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