Americans have shown little hesitancy about betting on the World Cup, the weather in Dallas and the next James Bond through the prediction markets.

Yet, for many, politics is a step too far.

Results from The POLITICO Poll show that a large group of U.S. adults doesn’t believe wagering on political events like what President Donald Trump will say, who he will pardon, and the outcome of the 2028 presidential election should be legal.

The prediction markets are still new to much of the public, even after their meteoric rise in mainstream media, finance and politics. But as Kalshi, Polymarket and other such companies have opened the door to a world of betting on just about everything and anything, the poll’s results suggest a disquiet among many Americans about the flood of wagers — and especially when they relate to Washington.

Conducted by Public First, an independent U.K.-based polling firm, the survey found that a plurality of U.S. adults — 44 percent — said they believe that betting on election outcomes should be illegal. A similar share of respondents voiced concern about betting on what the president or other newsmakers will say, as well as who will receive a presidential pardon.

“These markets are not for everybody,” said John Aristotle Phillips, who leads the election-centric prediction market platform PredictIt. “People are going to object to certain areas, and they’re going to be somewhat sanguine about others.”

Prediction market proponents have argued that politically focused bets serve as a valuable source of information by offering a wisdom-of-the-crowds lens on the news of the day. The markets, they say, can also help consumers, corporations and small businesses offset the financial risk of a change in administration or the law.

And yet, the results could provide new fodder for those critics who fear that the wagering of millions of dollars on U.S. elections risks staining American democracy. Nearly $700 million has already traded hands on the 2028 presidential election markets from Kalshi and Polymarket’s international platform.

“It’s a bad bet for democracy,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, told POLITICO. “If you allow election betting, you now have very affluent folks who can bet millions of dollars and simultaneously affect the outcome of an election through dark money. … That type of corruption in our elections is deadly.”

Kalshi declined to comment for this report. In a statement, Polymarket Deputy Chief Legal Officer Olivia Chalos said prediction markets “have become a foundational source of real-time information and forecasting, providing real-time probability signals across politics, sports, culture, economics, and current events to anyone seeking market information about future outcomes.” Chalos added that the company operates a U.S.-regulated venue that is subject to the same rules as other major financial exchanges.

The prediction markets are nothing new in the U.S. But for years, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a small but powerful financial regulator, blocked them from expanding in areas like elections over concerns about unleashing a torrent of betting in the U.S. financial markets.

And then, just weeks before Election Day 2024, a federal judge knocked down the CFTC’s arguments opposing a bid by Kalshi to offer the chance to wager thousands if not millions of dollars on the election. That opened the floodgates on regulated political betting in the U.S. — and the frenzy has only intensified since.

Day traders, political junkies and Wall Street giants are now taking to the prediction markets to wager on a seemingly ever-expanding slate of bets that covers sports, politics and pop culture. Kalshi and Polymarket have partnership agreements with the likes of CNN, The Wall Street Journal’s publisher and Major League Baseball, and boast valuations measured in the tens of billions of dollars. And the CFTC has adopted a far-friendlier posture to the industry’s growth under Trump and its new chair, Michael Selig.

The prediction markets still have a long way to go in winning over most Americans. More than 50 percent of Americans said they would not consider placing a bet on a prediction market, according to The POLITICO Poll.

Younger Americans, however, do find the markets to be of interest. Of those who were between 18 and 24 years old, 12 percent of respondents said they had placed a prediction-market wager —an identical finding for those who were between 25 and 34 years old. By comparison, just 6 percent of the broader group said they had done so. What’s more, 30 percent of those 18- to 24-year-olds said they’d consider placing a bet on a prediction market, compared to 17 percent of the total group.

Sports account for most of the trading activity on prediction markets today — and a major part of the fight swirling around them. States across the country, tribal organizations and entrenched interests in the gambling industry have argued that the companies are skirting existing sports-betting regulations, a charge that the prediction markets and the CFTC have firmly rejected. (The POLITICO Poll found that, when asked who should regulate the prediction markets, 28 percent of respondents said the federal government, versus 15 percent who said the states.)

But the markets have also swiftly expanded their political wagers, which now go well beyond the outcome of a presidential election and include down-ballot races, the fate of Cabinet secretaries and the passage of legislation. And those markets could become major drivers of the prediction market industry’s long-term growth, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence wrote in a report this month.

The analysts called markets on politics, elections and public policy “the greatest opportunity” for Kalshi and Polymarket, estimating that those products could grow to see $266 billion in trading volume by 2030. That would represent 27 percent of the platforms’ volume, compared to 10 percent in early 2025, according to the report.

For Caleb Davies, a long-time prediction market trader who lives in Minnesota, political markets are critical. Polls, analyses and pundits, of course, offer some insight into what will happen in an election or with a pending bill, but Davies said, “it’s not the same as getting a whole bunch of smart people betting money.” He added that wagering on the passage of a major bill with sweeping economic implications, such as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, can be critical as well.

“It’s a unique product,” he said.

Some offshore markets like Polymarket’s international platform even offer trading tied to the Iran war, though the CFTC outlaws U.S.-regulated prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket’s U.S. venue from such topics. A majority of those surveyed said that wagers on the outcomes of war and on terrorist acts should be illegal.

The poll was conducted just weeks after the Justice Department and CFTC charged a U.S. soldier with allegedly using confidential information to trade on the capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro through Polymarket, a landmark case that has fanned concerns on Capitol Hill about insider trading in the prediction markets.

That war and terrorism bets would be unpopular was no surprise to PredictIt’s Phillips. But politics more generally, he said, does have a place in the prediction market landscape. And for Phillips, it’s not just about the traders — it’s also about the newsrooms, campaign strategists and broader public who are turning to the markets for clues as to the president’s agenda, whether a bill is going to pass and, of course, who is going to win an election.

“We’re in the early innings,” he said. “There are going to be hundreds or thousands of prediction markets around the globe — some of them are going to be very, very specific to a particular industry or human activity and others are going to be much broader. And there is a place for political prediction markets.”

ATLANTA — Spain’s soccer chief told POLITICO he is confident that either Madrid or Barcelona will host the World Cup final in 2030, as Morocco joins the race to stage the biggest sporting event in the world.

On a sun-baked afternoon in Atlanta outside La Casa de España, Rafael Louzán — who has been in charge of the Royal Spanish Football Federation since late 2024 — said that Spain has a storied history of hosting major events and would do so again when the World Cup returns to the Iberian peninsula for the first time since 1982.

Spain and Portugal will jointly host the 2030 World Cup with Morocco, and some matches will be played in South America to celebrate the centenary edition of the tournament. The first World Cup took place in Uruguay in 1930.

“We have a deep respect for our co-host nations, and not only Morocco, also Portugal and also Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. But Spain is the nation who leads the World Cup,” Louzán said.

“We are really confident because we have 55 percent of all matches organized for the World Cup and we have 11 cities. Morocco has six and Portugal has two or three. We have plenty of confidence that we can organize the final in Madrid or Barcelona. We have two great stadiums and we know that the world of football doesn't hesitate about who's going to organize the World Cup final,” he added.

“We have one of the greatest leagues in the world. We are one of [the] top nations in terms of championships, not only in the national team, but also in the clubs. So, we are confident,” said Louzán, speaking after being mobbed for pictures by ecstatic Spanish supporters.

A senior Moroccan soccer official confirmed to POLITICO in Boston that his federation was keen to host the 2030 final, and that the country had the infrastructure to do so. Morocco has spent billions of dollars on new arenas, highlighted by the Hassan II Stadium that is under construction near Casablanca and designed to hold 115,000 spectators.

Soccer officials expect a decision on the showpiece match from FIFA within the next few months and a political lobbying battle to intensify ahead of the governing body’s verdict.

“Spain has a great capacity to host major events, not only sporting events. We recently hosted the pope’s visit, [and the 2022] NATO congress in Spain,” Louzán said. “I think that Spain has achieved a great capacity for organizing major events and we are confident that we can organize the best World Cup ever in Spain.”

Louzán sat next to FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Sunday, as Spain thrashed Saudi Arabia in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium. He told POLITICO that he didn’t discuss 2030 with the global soccer chief, just the success — so far — of the 2026 edition.

“We're having a great time here in the U.S. and Mexico,” Louzán said. “I spoke with Gianni Infantino and congratulated him for the organization of this World Cup. We are really thankful for the hospitality here in Atlanta and in Chattanooga, which is our base camp.”

LOS ANGELES — The political tensions surrounding Iran’s national soccer team were on full display Sunday at SoFi Stadium, where Iranian American fans loudly booed during the playing of Iran’s national anthem before the team’s World Cup match against Belgium.

Among the crowd were several supporters displaying Iran’s pre-revolution Lion and Sun flag, a symbol associated with opposition to the current regime. FIFA prohibits the flag inside tournament venues, but some fans carried it anyway — and at least one supporter waved it during the anthem in an act of defiance.

Conversations with Iranian American fans at the stadium in Inglewood revealed a consistent message: Their protests were directed at Iran’s government, not at the players representing the country on the field. An Iranian American man from Seattle who gave his name as Majid said that he appreciated the opportunity to "confront the tyrannies that are happening."

"Iran is hostage for the past 47 years or so to a regime that is promoting terrorism and chaos in the region," he said. "For the team, we support them. But the anthem, the flag — we don't support it."

That distinction was evident throughout the match, which ended in a scoreless draw. While the anthem drew intense jeers, Iranian players received loud cheers on corner kicks and takeaways.

The game, held amid U.S.-Iran talks to end the monthslong war between the two countries, was the second of two matches Iran played in Los Angeles, home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. Both ended in draws.

The French minister for sports, Marina Ferrari, was in New York City to support her national team, which will play its second match tomorrow against Iraq. On Monday, she dropped by the French consulate across from Central Park for an event organized by Business France to discuss the opportunities this year’s three-country World Cup represents for French and American companies.

Panelists included French Football Federation President Philippe Diallo, New York City Economic Development Corporation interim CEO Jeanny Pak and representatives from the NFL and the New Orleans Saints, which are playing the first ever professional (American) football game in France this fall at a stadium in the Paris suburbs.

In prepared remarks, Ferrari talked about Franco-American cooperation, not just for major sporting events, but also for America’s 250th anniversary.

“France will be, as it always has been, at your side,” she said.

In an interview afterwards, Ferrari answered questions in English about politically outspoken French footballers, Qatari influence in French sports and the beautiful game being divided into quarters by TV commercials during World Cup “hydration breaks.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What do you think of football becoming a four-quarter sport instead of a sport of halves? Are the Europeans concerned that this World Cup has made it into a four-quarter sport?

In France, we have been working with the broadcaster and they took the engagement not to put advertising during those pauses. For us, it’s important. When we organize in the future such a competition — with the weather and with the climate change — we will have to adapt the competition. So I understand clearly why those times now exist, but in France we take care about not pushing so much advertising during this time.

You talked about sports uniting. What do you think of Kylian Mbappé and others on the team taking stances against the far right?

I think a player is a citizen like anyone, so they can express their feelings, their political views, or their opinions. It is not forbidden — but, while playing, stop when you are wearing the shirt of France. But I think they are free to do that.

Paris 2024 was such a successful Olympics. What have you talked to Americans about to pull off a World Cup and an Olympics? And how are you meeting that same level for the Winter Olympics in 2030?

I think that we’ve got to think together about the future of these Olympic Games in winter, because you know, with the climate change, having snow in the future is more and more uncertain. So we’ve got to think, how do we produce snow in the future without taking water from the consumption of the citizens. So we have a lot to do on that, because in the future I think that only a few countries will be able to organize again [Winter] Olympics and Paralympics, so we’ve got really to create a new model, a sober model for the future and for the next generation.

Are you concerned about Qatari dominance of French domestic football, given the country's sovereign wealth funds ownership of champion club Paris Saint-Germain?

We are proud of having Paris Saint Germain. I hear this bad buzz, blah blah blah, the investors, etc. I think we are lucky to have such a club, so don’t count on me to say bad words.

LOS ANGELES — Moments after Iran and Belgium battled to a scoreless draw at SoFi Stadium, the Belgian players beat a hasty retreat to the locker room.

Not the Iranian World Cup team.

The players on Team Melli lingered on the field, doing a slow lap to cheers from supporters who’d dominated the stands with chants of “Iran!” The Iranian players held their hands aloft and clapped for the spectators, some of whom waved Iran’s pre-revolution lion and sun flag, which is seen as a symbol of resistance against the Islamic Republic and is banned by FIFA.

One Iranian American fan, who gave his name as Majid, said he came from Seattle for the game. “The team, even though there is controversy … the team is here, they want to win … and we support them,” he said.

The scene made for a striking juxtaposition: Iranian players representing the Islamic Republic applauding a crowd in which some fans waved a flag symbolic of opposition to the very theocracy whose colors they wore.

Iran plays its final group stage match against Egypt in Seattle on June 26, during the city’s monthlong LGBTQ+ Pride celebration — a convergence that has drawn formal complaints from both Middle Eastern countries.

VANCOUVER — On the opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympics, protesters marched to BC Place, the culmination of a decade-long tug-of-war over whether Vancouver had room for a global sports mega-event. Activists first tried to block the Olympics from coming to town, then tried to use it to extract social commitments from organizers, and finally to shame anyone involved.

On Thursday, when Canada was preparing to play the most important match in the country’s soccer history, the streets around BC Place appeared to be free of protesters, filled only with gleeful fans swathed in patriotic red and the occasional dishdasha preferred by the Qatar Football Association’s traveling contingent.

“It's kind of a nothing-burger,” observed Am Johal, who as the chair of the Impact on Communities Coalition had been a leader of the city’s anti-Olympics movement, hours before kickoff on the World Cup’s second match day.

Johal was walking through the Downtown Eastside, a scruffy neighborhood that had been the site of the greatest pre-Olympic friction, along the lines of conflict that define the modern North American city — between new transplants and existing residents, tourists and locals, police and civil-rights activists, global capital and local resistance.

Now, however, Johal was carrying a fiscal conservative’s laments rather than those of the community organizer. Canada’s governments were projected to spend over $1 billion to host World Cup matches in Vancouver and Toronto, with a roughly even split between funds coming from the federal budget as opposed to provincial and local ones. More than 70 percent of voters in both cities told pollster Angus Reid that it was not worth the public cost.

“I think if the government is looking to spend a billion of public funding related to economic and social benefit, it should really do a proper opportunity cost,” said Johal. “If there's a massive public subsidy being done to groups that are unaccountable to the broader city — if these things are going to go ahead — why is public money going into them?”

Those were arguments Johal made when Vancouver voters were asked in November 2002 to weigh in on the merits of an Olympic bid. Almost two-thirds of those casting ballots in the municipal plebiscite voted to proceed. But over the course of the decade, as the games grew near, the coalition of skeptics appeared to grow. (The Vancouver Sun dismissed them as “whiners and grumble-bunnies.”)

There were anti-gentrification activists who feared that an Olympic Village and other new developments would price out renters and displace property owners. Anti-consumerist radicals, many with ties to the Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters, saw it as a corporate spectacle. Civil libertarians anticipated heavy-handed police measures to clear streets of the homeless and drug users. (Vancouver is home to North America’s first supervised injection facility.) Environmental activists and tribal groups, who hold disproportionate sway in British Columbia’s politics, sought to protect what they said was unceded aboriginal land.

As the anti-Olympic coalition grew, it split along the lines that often fracture protest moments. Johal’s community coalition sought to extract 37 specific policy commitments to ensure what one City Council resolution described as a “transparent, inclusive and socially sustainable” games.

The Anti-Poverty Committee took a more militant approach, threatening to “evict” members of the local Olympics organizing committee from their homes, attacking branches of games sponsor Royal Bank of Canada with rocks, and vandalizing the office of British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, a leading Olympic booster. The militants also took aim at those on their own side, even if more playfully: David Eby, who as executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association had been the anti-Olympics’ movement most prominent spokesman, received a pie to the face after arguing for non-violence at a community meeting.

Despite the irreconcilable “diversity of tactics,” as activists politely described it, the rebellion attracted notice beyond Vancouver, inspiring a new era of local resistance to global mega-events. Veterans of the Vancouver campaign shared lessons with activists in Boston, who in 2015 forced then-Mayor Tom Menino to withdraw plans to bid for the 2024 Summer Games due to civic opposition. Two European cities, Hamburg and Budapest, subsequently killed their bids once voters expressed their disapproval in referenda. The NOlympics LA movement, currently attempting to rally political opposition to the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, draws from the lessons of Vancouver.

Evidence of that legacy has been scarce on the streets of Vancouver this month, even after the city enacted “FIFA Bylaws” designed to give police specific tools to use against street vendors and buskers and remove advertising that interferes with the World Cup sponsorship deals. The Pivot Legal Society deployed crews of “legal observers” who chased law-enforcement officials through the Downtown Eastside, and activists shared Vancouver Police Department press releases boasting of new drone surveillance capacities.

“These are always moments where policing gets new tactics and technologies,” observed Johal, “and they oftentimes get deployed during mega events as a way of moving forward.”

But the Downtown Eastside did not feel like a neighborhood under siege, as it had in 2010. Even if it competes with the Olympics in cultural and geopolitical salience, the World Cup is a more logistically diffuse experience. Rather than being consolidated within a single metropolitan area for two jam-packed weeks, this year’s World Cup lasts for more than five weeks and is spread across 16 cities in three countries.

In 2022, the same year that Vancouver offered itself up to host World Cup matches, Eby was elected British Columbia’s premier. Now instead of using his words to inspire the activists who massed outside BC Place, he was inside. Inside a luxury box, Eby greeted sports executives who lobbied him to make a new commitment to the Vancouver Whitecaps franchise that joined Major League Soccer the year after the Olympics. (Eby’s office did not make him available for an interview.)

“We’re so excited to be hosting,” Eby said in one social-media video. “And we’re so excited to have a win under our belts.”

Jordan is among the teams making its first-ever appearance at a World Cup, and for the country’s ambassador to the United States it is a chance to introduce the world to a country often viewed through the lens of regional conflict and security challenges — and to showcase a different side of the Middle East.

"You see us through security, we see us through humans," said Dina Kawar, who has represented the Hashemite Kingdom in Washington since 2016, an unusually long spell for a foreign diplomat there.

Her team plays its second match tomorrow, in northern California. Given Jordan’s defeat in its first match against Austria, and the fact that it will face Lionel Messi’s Argentina in its third, the team will almost certainly need a victory against Algeria tomorrow to have any chance of advancing to the next round

"All eyes are on the Jordanian team because we are new in this," Kawar told POLITICO earlier this month. "Of course, Argentina is important for us. People know Argentina. People will be watching closely to see where we go.

A career diplomat who was educated in the United States, Kawar discussed what she wants World Cup watchers to learn about Jordan: the country's growing investment in sports, including women's soccer, and how Amman hopes to use the tournament to showcase Jordan as a destination for tourism and business.

Since this will be Jordan's first appearance at a World Cup, what does this achievement mean for the country and for Jordanians around the world?

It's a big deal. It's a big deal for us on the national level. I think the whole country is going to stop during the game. It has ignited national pride.

For the Jordan Football Federation, they see it as an important step to improve the local sports infrastructure. We hope that it attracts commercial sponsorships and interest in the country in general.

For the federation, this is an occasion for the team to step into being a professional team. It means having more money, more sponsorships. The players can be in other teams and clubs. That's very important.

How far do you expect them to go in the tournament?

Look, if you don't dream big, nothing happens. Honestly, the most important thing is to have a good game. If they win, that's fantastic. If they lose, at least it's a decent game. For us, the most important thing is that the game is a good one. If you look at how they performed in the Asia and Arab Cups, they've done an amazing job. This team has a lot of potential, and when you have a team that has a lot of potential, it's more exciting.

Jordan has thus far been more successful in women’s soccer than men’s. How did that happen? 

The team was established in 2005 by Prince Ali bin Hussein, and he's been a big, big supporter of advancing women's football.

Since then, we've won the West Asia Championship and the Arab Cup twice. I think our women's team has been a leader in the Arab world.

Despite the challenges, there are always cultural taboos and social taboos. Female football was a little bit of an intrusion into the male-dominant world of football.

But look at the U.S. The [women’s] team has been amazing. Despite the cultural and social taboos, we've been breaking boundaries and championing this important game.

What aspects of Jordanian culture and society do you want the world to see during Jordan's first World Cup appearance?

This is an important opportunity to showcase Jordan's rich cultural heritage, its vibrant identity, and not only its passion for sports.

We want to show that Jordan is a beautiful destination.

We're having fan zones in Dallas and Santa Clara with concerts, food trucks, activities for children, shops and markets. We want people to visit and see how beautiful Jordan is.

The tourism in Jordan is amazing. You have cultural tourism, the Dead Sea, religious tourism, some of the most beautiful mosaics, nature and hiking. Of course, Petra and Wadi Rum are beyond description.

Most Americans still see the region through its security challenges.

You know what, Sophia? You see us through security, we see us through humans. That's one thing I would like to correct at the start.

Sports is becoming more important. There's always been interest in soccer, but now there's more awareness and more effort from governments to push their teams forward. As you go through that process, brilliant players get the attention of leagues and other clubs, and that's how it goes. The ball starts rolling.

The fact that sports is becoming so important in the Arab world is because countries are investing in it and making a network. I think that's a very, very good thing.

We've always had football in Jordan, but now it's another level. It's the beginning of a new phase.

ATLANTA — Gulf countries have plowed billions of dollars into domestic soccer, led by a multi-year Saudi spending extravaganza that has brought global superstars and new attention to its domestic league. But it is doing little to improve their showing at the World Cup.

The United Arab Emirates failed to qualify. Qatar has been on the losing end of one of the tournament’s most lopsided scorelines. Saudi Arabia now needs a win in its next match to have any chance of progressing. The results, and the performances behind them mark a disappointment for the monied Gulf petromonarchies’ hope of wielding power through sports.

“The Saudis are using football to speed up soft power that would normally take decades to build: reputation, tourism, investment and global relevance,” said one business consultant who has worked with Riyadh on commercial strategy and was granted anonymity to protect relationships.

Saudi Arabia’s heavy defeat to Spain on Sunday may have been the most glaring moment of all. The country began its spending extravaganza in 2022, and has brought players who left their mark in Spain’s domestic league — including Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Karim Benzema — but the Saudis couldn’t keep up in global competition.

“When we have these stars in the Arabian League, I think that the more competitive the competition, the better our players will be. But it’s different when we’re playing for the national team because in the national team — these experiences — there needs to be a certain mentality,” Saudi team manager Georgios Donis said at a post-match press conference on Sunday, in response to a question from POLITICO.

“I’m always a realist in what I see,” Donis continued, “and I believe that over time we’re going to put together an excellent, national team and we will come back to the level that we can with the opponents in the next team where we’ll be very competitive.”

The 2022 host nation Qatar, which owns European champion club Paris Saint-Germain and leading global broadcaster beIN Sports, was humiliated by Canada last week. The United Arab Emirates, which counts English giant Manchester City and Major League Soccer’s New York City FC in its soccer portfolio, has qualified for the World Cup only once, in 1990. The biggest name to join one of the Gulf domestic leagues, Cristiano Ronaldo of Riyadh’s Al-Nassr, has been ridiculed in international media for his detrimental impact on the Portuguese squad.

Those familiar with the thinking of Saudi soccer officials say they are trying to avoid the example of China, which found that signing big stars to its domestic league was economically unsustainable while doing little to improve the national team’s fortunes.

“That also showed the limits of buying attention without building lasting credibility, although the Chinese did it mostly for national prestige,” said the business consultant. “The Saudi approach feels more strategic. They are already getting attention and access. The bigger question is whether that becomes long-term credibility, and they seem pragmatic enough to change course if parts of the project don’t work.”

Authorities in Riyadh are realistic and regard the impact on elite level as being long term, said another industry figure who has worked on soccer with the Saudis. There is only so much time for patience, however: Saudi Arabia will hope for a stronger performance by the time it hosts the men’s World Cup in 2034.

Sunday presents another test for both Belgium and Maximus Textoris Pulcher, the rescue cat that Prime Minister Bart De Wever hoped would become the 2026 successor to Paul the Octopus, who predicted (with surprising accuracy) the winners of the 2010 World Cup.

De Wever's cat has become something of a feline influencer — Maximus's Instagram following now outpaces the PM's — but probably shouldn't quit social media for prediction markets. Maximus, who chooses a match's outcome by pawing from one of three dishes, anticipated a Belgian win in the team's first match against Egypt — it ended in a draw. Maximus has again tipped the Red Devils to prevail today, this time against Iran.

Gov. Josh Shapiro is quickly becoming the prospective 2028 presidential campaign field’s biggest World Cup fan.

On Monday, the Pennsylvania governor and potential presidential candidate is set to attend his second match of the tournament when he is in the stands at Lincoln Financial Field to see Iraq play France in Philadelphia, according to a spokesperson. He also attended Ivory Coast vs. Ecuador there a week ago with his wife Lori. Shapiro is also expected to hit the FIFA Fan Festival before the match.

Shapiro joins a growing list of 2028 hopefuls to take in the tournament. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, attended the U.S. opener against Paraguay. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the American squad’s match against Australia. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who hasn’t actively made moves toward a campaign but has carved out a leadership role in the party, attended the France vs. Senegal game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

A number of potential 2028 candidates in states hosting games have not yet made the pilgrimage to a game: Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) hasn’t partaken of an East Rutherford match. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, for example, have not attended matches at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (Ossoff has said he has no interest in running for president), nor has Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) hasn’t taken in a match at either AT&T Stadium in Arlington or NRG Stadium in Houston.

Shapiro is known on local sports radio as “Josh from Juniata,” and is a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles and 76ers. That fandom could help him build stronger relationships with voters. Philadelphia’s fan zone has drawn significant crowds.

Shapiro has also used host status to distribute 700 free tickets to Philadelphia community organizations. He said it was “really important” to him that it would happen when he landed matches.

“Governor Shapiro believes the FIFA World Cup is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that should benefit all Pennsylvanians,” his office said in a press release earlier this month, and “he is working to make the matches free and accessible to as many people as possible.”

The tickets are also an economic development tool: “As part of Visit PA's sponsorship of Philadelphia Soccer 2026, the Commonwealth gains access to a mix of suite, VIP, and general admission tickets, which are being used to host business leaders, prospective partners, and other guests to further strengthen Pennsylvania’s economic development and promote the Commonwealth as the best place to visit, live, and do business,” a Shapiro spokesperson said.

More broadly, the politics of attending a FIFA World Cup game are tricky, says Eric Koch, a soccer fan and Democratic consultant based in New York City.

"In fairness the ticket prices are insane and the U.S. matches have all been on the West Coast so it's hard for anyone to get out there — and AOC has been (rightfully!) basking in the Knicks win,” Koch said. “The U.S. loves a winner and this squad is not only super talented but is also on the cusp of really capturing the hearts of the whole country as we go to the knockout rounds so I expect we will see more candidates embracing them. It's going to be a great unifying thing to rally behind."

For Democrats in particular, embracing the World Cup could help them with two political projects, Koch said: embracing some kind of patriotism and relating more with voters, but it has to be an authentic effort.

“As with all things in politics, if it’s not authentic to you and what you’re about, it’s going to seem fake and forced and this applies extra to sports, which people have actual deep connections to,” Koch said. “The good thing is the USMNT can be everyone’s team and as the hype train builds I think we will see more pols embracing them.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misidentified the neighborhood Gov. Josh Shapiro identifies with when calling sports radio. He calls as "Josh from Juniata."

President Donald Trump’s fingerprints are all over this World Cup — even the stadium gift shops, trade editor Emily Cadei writes in.

Granted, few of the customers that are mobbing official FIFA merch stores are examining the provenance of their $100+ jerseys or $50 baseball caps. But those “Made in” tags tell a story of how trade flows have shifted since Trump was first elected to the White House.

The jerseys? Made in Thailand. The scarves? Made in Vietnam. The special edition soccer ball displaying the names of the North American host cities? Made in Indonesia. (None of those countries, notably, are in the World Cup themselves, with only Indonesia even coming close to qualifying.)

They are part of a surge in imports the United States has seen from Southeast Asia in recent years, as Trump ratcheted up tariffs on neighboring China and as Chinese labor became more expensive, relative to other countries in the region. Vietnam has been a particular beneficiary of the shift, with its goods exports to the U.S. jumping 42 percent in 2025, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

The same is true, but on a smaller scale, for Thailand and Indonesia.

Imports from those countries have continued to climb in 2026, even after the Supreme Court in February struck down Trump’s steepest tariffs on China, making their exports, in theory, a little cheaper. But the ruling did not affect tariffs Trump levied on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods during his first term.

The Trump administration is now threatening China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries with additional tariffs as a part of trade investigations launched to replace the ones struck down by the Supreme Court. They aren’t expected to be as extreme, however, as the ones the president imposed last year.

Even with those duties in place, America still bought plenty from China in 2025 — more than $300 billion worth of goods, per USTR. Thus far in 2026, China ranks behind only Mexico and Canada (our North American World Cup co-hosts) in terms of largest U.S. trading partners.

And indeed, the FIFA shops are hawking plenty of “Made in China” swag, too: from bucket hats, to collectible pins, to keychains, to a $40 imitation gold chain with a FIFA logo pendant that my 8-year-old begged me to buy for him.

(That was a hard “no.”)

LOS ANGELES — Iran's players arrived back in the United States yesterday to play Belgium. For supporters of Team Melli, a cat-and-mouse game with FIFA over political expression continues.

Soccer's global governing body has included Iran's pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flag — a favorite symbol of those protesting the régime in Tehran — on its list of "materials, including but not limited to banners, flags, fliers, apparel and other paraphernalia, that are of a political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature" banned under its stadium code of conduct.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court court judge upheld the ban last week after a challenge from the Southern California-based Institute for Voice of Liberty, which argued that FIFA was targeting “protected symbolic and political speech” in violation of California law.

Actually enforcing the ban against a flood of fans entering the stadium with the emblem on a wide variety of paper and cloth goods has been tougher.

As Iran’s players came out to examine the field about 90 minutes before kickoff of their first match, on Monday night against New Zealand, a stadium official approached a 26-year-old Orange County woman who was holding the flag.

Under FIFA’s rules, he told her, she could wear the Lion and Sun but not “display” it. He lowered his voice to share a loophole: If she wrapped herself in the flag, it would become an item of clothing, exempting it from FIFA’s ban.

“If it’s not supposed to be political, why can you have the post-revolutionary flag and not the pre-revolutionary flag?” the woman remarked after. “And why isn’t like anyone else’s flag banned, like the Venezuelan flag, or whatever?”

The pre-Islamic Revolution flag has become a point of tension reflecting a deeper struggle over Iranian identity, dissent and representation on the world stage. It has has become a common symbol of protest amid the war in Iran, and when the flag of the Islamic Republic was rolled out on the field on Monday night, lots of fans countered with the Lion and Sun.

Fidgeting in his seat moments before kickoff, an Iranian-American man who declined to give his name sported a white T-shirt and black shorts and mulled his fashion choices. Though he supported the Iranian soccer team, he said he couldn’t bring himself to wear any official gear featuring the country’s current flag. He had also decided it was too fraught to show up in any gear emblazoned with the Lion and Sun. But as the Iranian team took the field to an explosion of noise from the mostly pro-Iran crowd, he seemed to second-guess his decidedly neutral sartorial choice.

There were other options. Outside, a man held a tri-country display, blending the flags of Israel, the United States and pre-revolution Iran. Meanwhile, the woman who had been approached by the FIFA official — and who gave her name only as Nicole out of fear she could be identified by the régime in Iran — wore a T-shirt with the pre-revolutionary flag. She had picked up a batch the previous day from a Westwood-based group allied with exiled opposition leader Reza Pahlavi that had organized pre-match protests.

Now each of the six family members in her row, including aunts and uncles who had moved to the U.S. after the 1979 revolution, was decked out in the Iranian flag. Each, said Nicole, was preparing to boo if Iran scored a goal.

“It’s a government team,” she said. “This is bittersweet. It’s the first time that Iran has a chance of making it out of the group stage, because last time they were in the Group of Death. But it’s like: how happy can you really be?”

DALLAS — The electric bill for FIFA’s World Cup matches in the U.S. will come to $860,000, according to data compiled by a power company.

Dallas Stadium – known to locals at AT&T Stadium – will use the most electricity, the equivalent of powering 1,035 homes for a month, followed by Atlanta (equivalent to 884 homes) and Houston (784 homes). All three cities are known for their blistering summertime heat and feature giant, air-conditioned stadiums.

At the other end of the spectrum, San Francisco and Seattle will use far less electricity, the equivalent of less than 400 homes, in large part because of their outdoor stadiums and cooler climates.

One other big difference among the cities: the power bill for Dallas’s air-conditioned dome will be $77,000 roughly half the $152,000 bill for Los Angeles’s open-air stadium, despite the LA venue’s lower power use. That’s largely due to Texas’s dirt-cheap electric rates for industrial customers.

The data, provided by Texas-based utility Payless Power, only covers the 11 stadiums in the United States. The company calculated the bills based on each stadium’s size, roof type, local climate and regional electric rates.

Sadly, the company didn’t tally the cost of other big power draws during the Cup, such as the five-story mall next to New Jersey/New York stadium, or chilling the Scottish delegation’s beer.

LOS ANGELES — Paul Krekorian, head of Los Angeles’ Office of Major Events, was driving to SoFi Stadium for the U.S. soccer team’s opening match against Paraguay when he found himself stuck in a traffic jam, trapped behind a mess of unmoving cars on a side street in Inglewood.

The problem: A self-driving Waymo vehicle was at the head of the line, attempting — without success — to make an unprotected left turn onto Manchester Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare.

“It couldn’t figure out that it was never, ever going to be able to make that left turn,” said Krekorian, a former LA City Council member appointed to the newly created major events role by Mayor Karen Bass.

He was annoyed. But what Krekorian actually saw was an opportunity — to correct a problem ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics, which will use the $5 billion-plus stadium for swimming events and the opening ceremony. It is the way many local officials are watching the World Cup unfold here: monitoring everything from the performance of traffic signals to signs of political unrest as a stress test for the Olympics.

“Instead of just steaming about it, I was thinking: OK, how are we going to geofence Waymos?” Krekorian said. “How are we going to work with the transportation network companies to make sure that we have effective pick-up and drop-off locations? All of that stuff.”

The messy lead-up to the World Cup — marked by weak hotel bookings, high ticket prices and security concerns — left some in LA leadership circles worried about the fate of the tournament, and its implications for the Olympics here. The World Cup’s economic benefit to the region remains a big question mark, and its early run in LA has revealed pressure points. In interviews with POLITICO, state and federal officials said they were concerned about reports of traffic jams in Inglewood. They also lamented the high cost of parking and tickets to the matches, the latter a longstanding complaint among soccer fans who’ve been priced out of attending the tournament, and a source of frustration among California elected officials who have demanded answers from FIFA.

“We saw three to five hours of congestion just for people to go to SoFi to pay $200 for parking,” said LA City Council member Bob Blumenfield. “Seeing some of those things, obviously, LA28 is a much larger footprint, so … we really are going to have to focus on the transit element of all this. And obviously, with the Olympics, we are thinking about that.”

Los Angeles will host its fourth match of the World Cup today, between Iran and Belgium, the most of any venue thus far. It has avoided the major disruptions some had feared. And after more than a week of competition — including two high-profile games at SoFi Stadium, one of them involving Iran’s team — Los Angeles politicians are more confident than ever that the city can pull off the upcoming global sports gathering that has been in the works for almost a decade.

“Much of what we’ve done in preparation for welcoming the world for the World Cup will be applicable to what we will do in ‘28 for the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Krekorian said. “There’s a palpable excitement here to be hosting the World Cup, and this is only a fraction of what we’ll see when it comes time for ‘28.”

The stakes are unusually high in Los Angeles — perhaps more so than in any of the other 10 World Cup host cities in the U.S. — because a major misstep would inevitably raise questions about the region’s ability to put on the Olympics. The city has already been the target of criticism from conservative personalities and politicians who questioned Democratic leaders here after the January 2025 firestorms, including the late Charlie Kirk and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), both of whom suggested the Games should be moved elsewhere. If the World Cup is a success — eight games will be played here over several weeks — it would demonstrate that a liberal, blue-state city can still pull off a complex mega-event.

Reynold Hoover, CEO of LA28, the Games’ organizing committee, told POLITICO he and his team are paying close attention to the soccer tournament — and that once it concludes, they will analyze data ranging from public transportation ridership and fan zone attendance to spectator flows in and around SoFi Stadium.

“This is an opportunity not just for LA, but for the country to show that we can actually do something really big together,” he said. “And when you look at the World Cup and what you’re seeing here in the United States, I think that’s a precursor, and I think both sides of the aisle see the value of having the Summer Olympics here in the United States for the first time since 1996.”

Concerns remain here, including about the cost of attendance. Blumenfield might benefit from attending a World Cup match at SoFi Stadium given that he is on the council’s ad hoc committee involved in preparations for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. But that’s not in the cards: “It’s too rich for my blood — I can’t afford a ticket,” he said.

Indeed, tickets to local World Cup matches have been climbing: the get-in price for Sunday’s Iran-Belgium contest is nearly $900 on one resale platform.

Transit remains a major issue, too — and one that several elected officials said they are monitoring closely.

Rep. Laura Friedman, who called the World Cup “a great dress rehearsal” for the 2028 Games, said it is paramount that Olympic organizers build on public transit gains from the soccer tournament. According to Los Angeles Metro data, ridership on Metro buses serving SoFi Stadium increased 41 percent from the first World Cup match at the venue to the second. While Friedman praised Metro for “performing very well,” she said that “for the Olympics we can try to increase” use of public transit.

“At SoFi Stadium, we have seen very expensive parking fees, we’ve seen a lot of congestion, long travel times,” said Friedman, a Burbank Democrat. “Especially for foreign visitors who may not be renting a car, they expect to be able to take public transportation — easily and safely.”

For all the comparisons of the two events, the Olympic Games are a vast enterprise many times larger than the World Cup — a fact not lost on local elected officials who caution against an apples-to-apples comparison. “The success of the World Cup at SoFi underscores our ability as a city to be able to manage these types of large-scale events,” said LA City Council member Monica Rodriguez, who also is on the ad hoc 2028 Games committee. “The difference with the Olympics is that we’re going to have multiple venues that are going to be hosting all at the same time. … So my primary concern is about the cost of security.”

On that front, LA has avoided major public security problems during the World Cup. The closest thing to a controversy at LA’s matches has been the uneven enforcement of FIFA’s ban on the display of Iran’s pre-revolution flag inside the stadium during the team’s draw with New Zealand on Monday.

LA City Council member Adrin Nazarian, a former state lawmaker who was born in Iran, attended that game and said “it felt very safe.” He also took public transportation to get there, and gave the trip high marks. “I wanted to experience that myself, just to kind of see how it is,” he said.

“What was happening in the Metro lines, for example, I was blown away,” he said. “Extremely helpful staff, ambassadors all over the place, high-visibility security. So, for folks coming in who may have had a negative impression about Los Angeles and the homelessness or safety concerns, you wouldn’t have experienced it.”

Public transportation helped Nazarian avoid Krekorian’s fate. As for the major events czar, did he ever get to make that left turn onto Manchester?

“I made a six-point turn … and I got out of there and took a different route,” Krekorian said with a laugh.

Sen. Ruben Gallego repeatedly used campaign cash to fund luxury outings with his wife and to care for his children since launching his campaign for Senate in 2023, according to a POLITICO review of campaign finance records and a person familiar with the senator’s spending.

The Arizona Democrat has used his leadership PAC to fund recent trips to Miami, Chicago, Disneyland and Disney World with his family. Gallego has tapped that PAC and his main campaign committee for more than $18,000 in reimbursements for child care since 2019 — including $400 to his wife’s mother for babysitting.

And Federal Election Commission records show that on one such occasion, Gallego used a joint campaign account with disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell to attend the 2023 Super Bowl in Arizona with his wife, Sydney.

Federal lawmakers can legally use campaign committee funds for travel, food, events and even child care, as long as those funds are not for “personal use,” meaning they may not cover activities that would exist irrespective of the campaign, according to the FEC. Leadership PACs are not even beholden to that “personal use” rule, meaning lawmakers have broad latitude to use the money they raise as long as it has some fundraising function. Ruben Gallego has leaned into that leeway, with his three children, Sydney Gallego, her mother and their full-time au pair frequently joining the senator on donors’ dime, according to the person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation.

“He just spends his campaign account like it’s his personal slush fund,” said the person. “He’s using campaign cash to live a luxury lifestyle.”

Gallego did not dispute using donor funds to pay for family travel or child care. “This is not breaking news,” he said in a statement to POLITICO. “With the rising costs of child care and the burden it has on the budgets of American families, Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House alike regularly travel with their wives and children, as is permitted by the FEC.”

Gallego is considering a presidential run in 2028. On Friday, Gallego traveled to South Carolina, where he took part in the Democratic Party’s “On the Road” series on Juneteenth.

But the pattern of spending could pose a major liability on top of his longtime friendship with Swalwell, who resigned from Congress in April amid allegations of sexual assault and a series of headlines about his misuse of campaign funds. Gallego’s team has recently brought on former Biden White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates to assist in political communications. Jacques Petit, Gallego’s communications director, told POLITICO that Gallego “is weighing all options for his political future. He has brought on Andrew to help navigate those processes.”

The person familiar with his spending said that there was concern among some members of Gallego’s inner circle that he would not pass the required vetting to be president or vice president.

“Any person close to Gallego would know that he is one of the most vetted candidates after his tough 2024 campaign where millions of dollars were spent against him,” Petit said in a statement to POLITICO. “Despite that, he overperformed the top of the ticket. Now he is focused on delivering for Arizonans and electing Democrats in 2026.”

Gallego has denied any knowledge of Swalwell’s actions and called for him to be expelled from Congress. Swalwell has called the allegations against him “false” and pledged to fight them.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) told CBS News in April that she had asked Senate leadership to investigate Gallego about allegations of misconduct that are “sexual in nature,” as well as “issues of campaign finance violations” but did not release details. A Gallego spokesperson called those allegations “right wing conspiracy theories.” Luna did not respond to a request for comment.

Asked about the status of the ethics probe, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune directed POLITICO to comments he made in April, when he told reporters that “the Ethics Committee will be tasked with trying to determine whether there's a there there.”

Last month, Gallego established a legal defense fund.

The Big Game 

In February 2023, 20 days after Gallego had launched his Arizona Senate bid to replace Kyrsten Sinema, the Gallegos, Swalwell, Swalwell’s then-chief of staff Yardena Wolf and several donors and their guests piled into State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, to watch Super Bowl LVII.

The gathering was billed as a fundraiser for the “Swallego Victory Fund,” a joint committee Swalwell and Gallego established in October 2022. Tickets to attend cost $5,000 and included a “pre-game brunch” that could be attended independently for $1,000, according to a copy of the invitation provided to POLITICO by Swalwell’s lawyer, Sara Azari. The committee raised a total of $56,505, all but $900 of which the FEC logged between Jan. 31 and Feb. 13, 2023, the day after the Super Bowl, according to FEC records. It spent $34,700 on event tickets and about $2,715 at The Henry, a brunch restaurant in Phoenix, the records show.

Donors to the committee included Rick Smith, the country’s highest paid CEO in 2024, and Dina LaPolt, a celebrity entertainment lawyer, both of whom attended the Super Bowl with family members. Neither Smith nor LaPolt responded to a request for comment. Wolf, Swalwell’s chief of staff at the time, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Gallego and Swalwell established the joint committee “in connection with Super Bowl LVII, and supporters who met the applicable contribution requirements were eligible to attend,” a Gallego spokesperson said in a statement to POLITICO. The spokesperson added that “tickets were purchased at fair market value” and that “Hosting donors and supporters at sporting events in their areas is a common, bipartisan practice.”

In a statement, Azari told POLITICO that Swalwell had “followed his campaign counsel’s guidance to plan the event,” noting that “Tickets were purchased [and] distributed through the fundraiser, and all activity was properly reported and conducted in compliance with applicable campaign finance rules.”

The Swallego Victory Fund, which raised no money after March 2023, was shut down on Jan. 1, 2025. Swalwell and Gallego each received $7,643.89 in their personal campaign committees, with the remainder going to standard operating fees.

It is unusual, though not unheard of, for candidates to fundraise at the Super Bowl. Former Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) hosted a fundraiser at the Super Bowl in 2010 that cost $5,000 to attend. And Swalwell dipped into campaign funds in 2024 to watch his San Francisco 49ers play in Las Vegas.

Lawmakers also sometimes have their tickets paid for in other ways. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a fellow Democrat widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, drew headlines when he attended the 2023 Super Bowl at the expense of a nonprofit. In President Donald Trump’s first term, for example, the Republican National Committee paid almost $500 per seat at the World Series for Trump, 11 members of Congress and senior White House staff, The Washington Post reported.

But it is far more common for politicians to pay their own way. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) attended the 2023 Super Bowl in Glendale but paid personally, his office told POLITICO. When New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani watched the Knicks play in the NBA finals earlier this month, he emphasized to reporters that he had personally paid for his $1,000 nosebleed seats.

Earlier this year, Gallego used the high price of Super Bowl tickets to lean into Democrats’ affordability messaging. “The average Super Bowl ticket now costs $6,773,” he wrote in an X post. “That’s not just a game — it’s a luxury bill.”

‘There’s a pattern’

Gallego cemented himself as a battleground-tested Democrat when he defeated Republican challenger Kari Lake in 2024, despite sweeping losses for his party across the country — immediately elevating him to the 2028 conversation.

In February 2024, about a month after being sworn in to the Senate, Gallego established the “JUNTOS PAC,” a leadership PAC used to raise and spend money separate from his official campaign committee. Since then, that committee has raked in nearly $1.5 million, more than half of which came from corporate PACs, according to FEC records.

Gallego, like many politicians with leadership PACs, has used those funds for an array of campaign and fundraising-related travel. He has also paid for his family to come along on several of those trips, according to the person familiar with Gallego’s spending.

That includes PAC retreats at Disney World where Gallego brought his wife, children and their au pair, and another to Disneyland with his wife and kids that FEC records show totaled nearly $1,500 in meals and hotels, not including flights, the person said.

The Gallegos also used PAC money to travel to St. Barts for Sydney Gallego’s boss’ birthday and to Miami for Sydney Gallego’s own birthday, according to the person familiar with his spending, staying at a Loews hotel on Miami Beach that cost more than $9,000, FEC records show. And when Gallego traveled to Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood in November 2025 to denounce the federal immigration crackdown there, the family stayed in a vacation rental, the person said, which records show cost the PAC nearly $1,500.

The Gallego spokesperson did not address the birthdays, but told POLITICO that all of those trips included fundraising activity. The Gallegos’ trip to St. Barts was part of “a multi-stop political and fundraising swing—as senators regularly do,” the spokesperson said. They added that Gallego hosted a fundraiser in Chicago and that the Gallegos “attended several widely attended political events and fundraisers” in Miami.

Gallego’s campaign committee and leadership PAC have also disbursed more than $18,000 in child care reimbursements and direct payments to an au pair company — including a $400 payment to Sydney Gallego’s mother, Moria Comini, for “Babysitting while at [a] campaign fundraiser.”

The child care reimbursements and trips to Miami and St. Barts were first reported by The Daily Beast.

Sydney Gallego and the children also used campaign committee and leadership PAC funds to fly between Washington and Phoenix 13 times in 2025, according to the person familiar with his spending.

“There’s a pattern,” the person said, adding that Sydney Gallego “just basically rides [Ruben Gallego’s] wave.”

Adam Wren contributed to this report.

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When Spain takes the field in Atlanta today against Saudi Arabia, it will have a point to prove: to soccer analysts shocked by the team's struggle against small Cape Verde, and to the leader of the country in which the match is being played.

No European country has infuriated Donald Trump more than Spain. Now it’s desperate to win his World Cup.

Outspoken socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, a supporter of Atlético Madrid, has clashed spectacularly with Trump over the Iran war, but also regarding NATO spending and Israel’s assault in Gaza. Meanwhile their policies on issues from energy to immigration could hardly be further apart.

“No prime minister previously has had as much acknowledgement [for fighting Trump] on the international stage or taken such an anti-American stance,” said Paco Camas, head of public opinion at polling firm Ipsos. Sánchez, he added, is positioning himself “at the forefront of resistance to the reactionary wave sweeping across Europe and the West.”

A recent poll by a public research institute showed that two-thirds of Spaniards disapprove of Trump’s criticism of Spain, suggesting some cross-party support for Sánchez’s position. Another poll, by independent firm 40db, showed that 82 percent of Spaniards see Trump as a threat to world peace, more than any other global leader.

The trigger for the souring of Washington-Madrid relations was the Spanish government’s refusal last year to increase its defense spending in line with American demands.

While Trump strong-armed NATO partners into accepting a 5 percent of GDP expenditure target, Spain — traditionally one of the military alliance’s lowest defense spenders — insisted on keeping its expenditure at 2.1 percent. Sánchez said the 5-percent target would have meant “eliminating unemployment, sickness and maternity benefits, reducing all pensions by 40 percent, or cutting state investment in education by half.”

In response, Trump called the country “a laggard” and repeatedly referred to it in disparaging terms. “Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly,” he said.

This year’s Middle East conflict only heightened tensions. Spain refused to allow the U.S. to use its joint military bases on Spanish territory for its offensive against Iran, with the prime minister labeling the attacks “unjustified and dangerous.”

Trump then threatened to cut off all trade ties with Spain, although that hasn’t happened so far, given how the country’s commercial relationships are embedded in the EU.

“We have a lot of winners, but Spain is a loser,” the president fumed in March to the New York Post.

He was referring then not to soccer, but that's how Spain will hope to prove him wrong today.

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

"We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”

While Curaçao’s players were training for their match against in Ecuador, government officials from the World Cup’s smallest-ever competitor hosted a two-day conference in Kansas City to promote it as a destination for American investment.

The Caribbean island of around 158,000 people located just north of Venezuela is a semi-autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is not quite a country, but since the sporting world is treating it like one this month, the government is hoping foreign investors will give it a fresh look.

“Curaçao is now on an international stage, while we never thought we would be there ... we want more people to know about Curaçao and invest,” Roderick Middelhof, Curaçao’s minister of economic development, told POLITICO.

After the team qualified for a World Cup spot last November, Curaçao's government quickly began discussing how the tournament could showcase the island's economic potential.

“When we knew that we would be going to the World Cup, the government sat together and said, 'OK, we need to take advantage of this moment,'” Middelhof said. “It was actually together with other ministers that we thought, 'OK, let’s organize meetings and show people what Curaçao is now, and what Curaçao will be in a few years with expansion and investment.'”

The Kansas City conference is one of several in World Cup cities organized by the economic-development ministry in parnership with CINEX, an agency that seeks to promote investment opportunities in Curaçao.

The events target companies interested in sectors ranging from energy and logistics to hospitality.

“[We invite] all companies that are interested in our oil sector and also other companies that are interested in international investment, so hotel owners, energy companies. For example, we had TOTAL; Epson was also there at one of the meetings,” Middelhof said.

“At the events we do a presentation about what Curaçao is and what Curaçao has to offer ... to put Curaçao in the spotlight ... around the World Cup,” he added.

Diversifying the economy beyond tourism is a key objective for the government, according to Middelhof. While tourism remains one of the island's main economic pillars, he sees significant potential in Curaçao's deep-water harbor, which could serve as a storage and logistics hub for international cargo, including oil.

“Our port is now really expanding, so the port of Curaçao is ready to provide storage space for other countries; it's not just about tourism,” he said, adding: “Curaçao now has the chance to not only rely on tourism, we can strive for more ... and show Curaçao is open for various businesses.”

Middelhof does acknowledge that the World Cup presents an opportunity to boost and further “stabilize” his country’s tourism sector, particularly as authorities pursue a target of 1 million stay-over visitors annually. Most tourists currently come from the Netherlands, reflecting the countries' historical ties. However, Curaçao is increasingly looking to broaden its visitor base.

The island is already seeing increased international interest following its World Cup qualification, said Middelhof, pointing to a rise in Google searches and social media engagement.

“Curaçao is, for a little while, on everyone's mind,” he said.

ROME — Donald Trump isn't the only problem on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's mind.

Failure to qualify for the FIFA men’s World Cup for the third consecutive time triggered a major political and public outcry in the football-obsessed country that has now morphed into a bitter fight over who controls the sport.

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party leaped to propose curtailing the power of the country’s football association — the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC) — after its president, the 72-year-old Gabriele Gravina, resigned in April under heavy pressure following a World Cup playoff defeat to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

With new elections to run the FIGC slated for June 22, Meloni’s allies are pushing to call off the vote and place the body under special administration — an emergency procedure used in the past for the sport to overcome major corruption scandals.

In a country where football carries outsized cultural weight, Italy’s World Cup embarrassment has become a proxy battle over governance, reforms, investment and the Meloni administration’s willingness to extend political influence into independent institutions.

“The first concern should not be new elections; it is not through elections that you create the conditions for a rebound,” Italian Sports Minister Andrea Abodi said in an interview with POLITICO.

Football officials have denounced the government intervention as a power play to block the heavy favorite, Giovanni Malagò, a former president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) who is disliked by Meloni’s party.

“The idea of placing it [the FIGC] under administration, to me, only suggests an occupation [by the government]; it offers no kind of perspective for the future,” Gravina told POLITICO from his Rome office, adorned by two twinkling World Cup trophies and other relics from a bygone era of glory. “The idea of taking over the football world has been circulating for far too long now,” he added.

Opposition parties have accused Meloni of centralizing control, stifling dissent and putting acolytes in positions of power, a pattern they observe in Italy’s state-owned television network, financial markets supervisor and judicial system.

But the government rejects that it wants to extend its reach to the FIGC. “It is a pathetic and baseless claim. There is no element that could be seen as an attempt by politics to take over this domain,” Abodi said.

Read the full story from Gregorio Sorgi here.

POLITICO has been crunching the numbers to see how all 48 of this year’s World Cup participants rank in several other off-field categories, which we’ll share more of over the weekend.

In today’s item, we're looking at countries sorted by their FIFA rank against their citizens' assessment of how close they are to living their best possible life.

Turns out, the happiest game of the World Cup will be Sweden vs. the Netherlands today (that’s also the only group-stage game taking place between two EU members) — while the upcoming game between Haiti and Morocco on June 25 may well be interrupted by floods of tears and bouts of introspection.