Blatter was the latest international soccer figure to call into question the suitability of the United States as a host country in a post on X that supported Mark Pieth’s comments from an interview last week with the Swiss newspaper Der Bund.
Pieth, a Swiss attorney specializing in white-collar crime and an anti-corruption expert, chaired the Independent Governance Committee’s oversight of FIFA reform a decade ago. Blatter was president of the world’s governing body for soccer from 1998-2015. He resigned amid an investigation into corruption.
In his X post, Blatter quoted Pietha and added: “I think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup.”
Oke Göttlich, one of the vice presidents of the German soccer federation, told the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper in an interview on Friday that the time had come to seriously consider boycotting the World Cup.
Two weeks ago, travel plans for fans from two of the top soccer countries in Africa were thrown into disarray when the Trump administration announced a ban that would effectively bar people from Senegal and Ivory Coast from following their teams unless they already have visas. Trump cited “screening and vetting deficiencies” as the main reason for the suspensions.
Fans from Iran and Haiti, two other countries that have qualified for the World Cup, will be barred from entering the United States as well; they were included in the first iteration of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration.
This summer’s World Cup has already faced heavy criticism from fan groups over ticket prices, as unprecedented demand and the use of dynamic pricing has seen the list price for a Category 1 ticket for the final at MetLife Stadium on July 19 set at $8,680.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino added on Friday that those high prices could also be further affected by fans with tickets in hand looking to sell them for profit on resale sites, thus driving up the cost.
The United States is co-hosting the World Cup with Canada and Mexico from June 11-July 19.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.