The idea is beginning to gain traction. Slowly, but steadily. Should people boycott the Men’s Football World Cup, from June 11 to July 19, in response to the policies โ particularly foreign policy โ of the United States president, one of the tournament’s co-hosts (along with Canada and Mexico)? Donald Trump’s intention to seize control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Danish crown, along with his threat to impose prohibitive tariffs on countries that oppose him, has certainly given weight to this possibility in Europe. Especially since, with 78 out of 104 matches scheduled, the US is set to host the vast majority of the tournament’s games.
It was in Germany, one of football’s great nations, that the first calls rang out. On January 16, Jรผrgen Hardt, a Member of Parliament from the Christlich Demokratische Union (CDU, the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz) โ raised with the tabloid Bild the possibility that the Mannschaft, Germany’s national football team, might not attend a tournament they have won four times (1954, 1974, 1990 as the Federal Republic of Germany, and then in 2014). He said such a measure should be considered only “as a last resort,” in order to bring the president “to his senses.”
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