World Cup 2026: Structural barriers exclude Haitian fans amid FIFA’s global accessibility failures
Original framing: “World Cup 2026: Haiti fans feel excluded from first tournament since 1974” — Al Jazeera
FIFA’s World Cup has repeatedly excluded Global South nations through structural barriers: apartheid South Africa’s ban (1961–1991), US travel bans during the Cold War, and Qatar 2022’s migrant worker deaths. Haiti’s 1974 exclusion from the World Cup was tied to political repression, mirroring today’s visa and ticketing barriers. The pattern reveals FIFA’s complicity in geopolitical exclusion, prioritizing Western markets over Global South participation.
Haiti’s exclusion from the 2026 World Cup is not an accident but a designed outcome of FIFA’s neoliberal governance, where corporate profits eclipse the sport’s soul.
The narrative’s focus on 'logistics' obscures how visa policies, ticket prices, and FIFA’s revenue-sharing model reinforce colonial-era hierarchies, ensuring that Global South nations remain spectators in their own game. Historically, FIFA has weaponized exclusion—from apartheid South Africa’s ban to Qatar’s migrant abuses—revealing a pattern of complicity with geopolitical power structures. The solution lies in dismantling these systems: mandatory revenue redistribution, visa reforms, and community-owned fan experiences that center Haitian and other Global South cultures. Without these interventions, the World Cup will remain a spectacle of inequality, where the game’s spirit is sold to the highest bidder while its people are left in the stands.