With the 2026 FIFA World Cup now under way, this Frontline package looks at football’s long, uneasy relationship with politics and power. From Maradona’s enduring legacy as a rebel icon to questions over how the Trump administration’s politics could shape the tournament in North America, the pieces trace how the game has always carried more than sport. The package also revisits recent World Cups—Qatar 2022 and Russia 2018—and the controversies that came with them: criticism of Qatar’s labour and social record, debates over whether that criticism itself carried bias, and the experiences of fans, workers, and women who found themselves at the centre of it. Other stories look at football’s place in everyday life—from how nations paused for matches to how fans in India celebrated a final played thousands of miles away.
Football, the package suggests, has never just been a game. Read on: