What will Trump travel ban mean for sport?

The United States is gearing up to host the world’s two biggest sporting events in the next three years, the 2026 Fifa World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games.

Events like these typically see a host nation draw hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world.

Will the tournaments be affected by a new travel ban that US President Donald Trump has instituted? And what about the ban’s effect on the wider world of sport?

As part of an immigration crackdown, he claims, is necessary because it places full restrictions on citizens of 12 nations entering the United States, as well as a small portion on seven others.

However, the order provides a provisional exemption for those who participate in the 2026 and 2028 Olympics.

Organisers of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics say they have “great confidence” that the ban will not disrupt the summer Games or the preparations for them.

After a meeting with the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) co-ordination commission, LA28 chair and president Casey Wasserman said: “I want to thank the federal government for recognising that.

It’s obvious that the federal government will be accommodating and providing for that environment.

“And so we have great confidence that that will only continue”.

Passport-holders from 12 nations are now outright banned from entering the United States. They are: Yemen, Ethiopia, Haiti, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

Significant but not sluggish travel restrictions are in place in seven additional nations: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Section four of the travel ban includes a clear exemption for sports stars travelling to those competitions – and other “major” sporting events.

Any athlete or member of an athletic team who is traveling to the US for the World Cup, Olympics, or other significant sporting event as determined by the secretary of state, including coaches, supporters, and immediate relatives, is permitted to do so.

Nicole Hoevertsz, an IOC vice president who chairs the LA28 coordination commission, stated that “two hundred and six countries are preparing to attend the Games.”

“The federal government has given us that guarantee … to make sure that these participants will be able to enter the country… We are very confident that this is going to be accomplished”.

The text means that those participating in the two major global sports events the US will host during Trump’s second term will still be able to travel. However, there are still a lot of important questions that remain unanswered because of the lack of detail surrounding other sporting events.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not or will not define as a “major sporting event” any further clarifications or measurement criteria.

“I think people from around the world, and Americans going to these events, would want to see actions like this”, said US state department spokesperson Tommy Pigott at a press briefing on Thursday afternoon.

“This is a component of being a host,” he said. We take security issues very seriously, and we want everyone to be able to attend the World Cup safely.

The Concacaf Gold Cup, for example, begins in the USA on 15 June and Haiti are due to participate. However, their participation is now questioned because the travel ban does not list the Gold Cup, which includes countries from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean as one of the exempted major events.

The phrase “World Cup” is unclear as well. The revamped Fifa Club World Cup, featuring 32 of the world’s best club teams, will take place in the USA from 14 June to 13 July. The competing clubs’ books contain 10 players from nations that are subject to a travel ban, but it hasn’t been decided whether the tournament will be exempted from the exemption.

Track and field athletes frequently travel to the USA to train in training camps ahead of major competitions. Though the exemptions make clear that athletes from the affected countries can travel to the Olympics in 2028, it makes no mention of their ability to attend camps in the time before then.

Major sports events are not available to fans from the underprivileged nations.

Iran, for instance, has already qualified for the 2026 World Cup, while countries like Haiti, Sudan, and Venezuela also have a chance to qualify.

There have already been concerns over the length of time the citizens of some countries were being made to wait for US travel visas to be processed and granted. As things stand, fans of all of those teams will no longer be able to attend the tournament. Given that their rivals will be able to rely on fans from the stands, it could be said that the restriction will put those teams at a competitive disadvantage.

What will happen to athletes who are currently employed in the USA but are citizens of prohibited nations is not made clear in the proclamation.

The NBA, MLB and MLS all feature players who are citizens of countries now placed on the travel ban list – how those players can continue to play in the USA is uncertain.

For instance, nine Venezuelans are currently listed with Major League Soccer clubs. Ronald Hernandez of Philadelphia Union, David Martinez of Los Angeles FC, and Josef Martinez of San Jose Earthquakes are scheduled to play in international competitions over the coming week.

By the time they return to the USA, travel restrictions on Venezuelans will be in place. The three athletes, along with others employed by US sports teams, will be permitted to travel abroad to compete or visit their families after that.

Trump enacted a severe travel ban on some nations, the majority of which had Muslim populations, during his first term in office. The MLS Players Union at the time stated that it was “extremely disappointed” and that it was “deeply concerned” about potential victims.

Trump’s anti-immigration policies have also prevented some athletes from other nations taking part in scheduled events held in the USA.

The Tibetan women’s soccer team received a 2017 US visa for travel to the Texas Dallas Cup. Cuba’s Yordan Santa Cruz, the head coach of Cuba, was denied a visa for the 2019 Gold Cup, and nine members of the Guatemalan Under-15 national soccer team were denied entry to the Under-15 Concacaf Championship in 2019.

In 2017 football’s world governing body Fifa warned Trump that travel bans could hinder the USA’s joint bid for the 2026 World Cup. Any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, must have access to the nation, according to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, because otherwise there won’t be a World Cup. The requirements must be concise.

That ban was eventually overturned by Trump’s successor Joe Biden in 2021.

Due to “travel measures” introduced by Trump, the women’s soccer team from Zambia earlier this year withdrew four Americans-based players from their squad for a upcoming tournament in China.

Infantino appears to have been interested in cozying up to Trump in the years since that decline.

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos were among the tech billionaires who were present at Trump’s inauguration in January.

The speech – given by Trump after he was sworn in for his second term as president – included negative comments about neighbouring Canada and Mexico, the USA’s World Cup co-hosts.

Infantino shared a glowing Instagram caption with “Donald Trump and I share a great friendship” during the week leading up to the inauguration. Infantino wrote about Trump nine times in a week total.

Infantino then accompanied Trump on the latter’s state visit to Saudi Arabia, before drawing the ire of Uefa and other continental bodies by delaying the start of the Fifa congress in Paraguay in order to hold a private meeting with Trump.