The World Cup's declining relevance reflects how globalization has made nationalism less appealing than arbitrary club loyalties
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-wallace-wells. "Opinion | The World Cup Is Starting Soon. Why Does No One Care? - The New York Times." June 3, 2026. www.nytimes.com
The Gist
The author argues that people care less about the World Cup now because globalization has made us uncomfortable with nationalism, even though political nationalism is rising. Instead of rooting for our countries, we prefer rooting for random international club teams because it's emotionally safer and doesn't require us to deal with complicated feelings about national identity.
Conclusion
The diminished interest in the 2026 World Cup, despite rising political nationalism, reveals that globalization has made the nation itself seem like an untrustworthy unit of organization, leading people to prefer meaningless club soccer loyalties over national team patriotism
Premises
- The 2026 World Cup is generating unusually low interest despite being held in North America, with thousands of unsold tickets and reduced hotel bookings
- Club soccer has risen to rival the World Cup in global importance over the past dozen years, with weekly games and global rosters
- This shift toward club soccer coincides paradoxically with rising political nationalism worldwide, when you'd expect more interest in national teams
- Modern national teams are increasingly composed of players from various diasporas and recent migration, making them less representative of blood-and-soil nationalist fantasies
- Political conflicts arise when national team stars like Mbappé criticize nationalist parties, creating irreconcilable tensions between the team's face and its supposed political base
- Club soccer fandom has become essentially arbitrary and global, while national team support requires genuine patriotic feeling that many now find problematic
- For both right-wing populists and liberals, rooting for meaningless club teams has become more appealing than engaging with the complicated politics of national identity
Assumptions
- Sports fandom reflects broader political and cultural attitudes
- The World Cup historically served as an outlet for nationalist feelings
- Globalization has fundamentally changed how people relate to national identity
- People's sporting loyalties reveal their comfort level with different forms of political organization
- The rise of club soccer represents a form of resistance to both nationalism and globalism