Seventy Years of Political Action 1953 - 2023
LONDON — Unexpected halftime entertainment for the England-DR Congo match was provided by Reform UK. The right-wing party that polls show would win a general election (but does not yet have enough MPs to field a soccer team) chose the moment to unveil its AI policy thinking.
England was losing as MP Danny Kruger opened with “I can’t believe you’re all here” — and announced the need for a Patriotic Compact on AI to a sparsely filled room.
OAKLAND, California — Thousands of soccer fans from around the world will funnel around the windy San Francisco Bay area by train, bus, and light rail to watch the U.S. take on Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday in an elimination game at Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium. But operators of the region’s interlocking mass transit systems are more likely to be concerned with the opinion of local riders than visiting ones.
In November, voters across San Francisco Bay Area counties will vote on a ballot measure that serves as something of an existential political referendum on the sometimes maligned but widely utilized public networks that knit together one of the United States’ most transit-dependent regions.
The measure would increase local sales-tax rates by up to a full percent to provide a stable funding source for BART, Muni, Caltrain and AC Transit, and the San Francisco Bay Ferry — all of which have faced lower ridership and declining fare revenues since the COVID-19 pandemic. Should it fail, transit agencies have warned of dramatic cuts to service that could lead to less ridership, even less fare revenue, and the end of the system altogether.
The Connect Bay Area campaign behind the ballot measure is already working overtime to convince voters that they do in fact hold a deep and abiding love for public buses, trains and boats, embarking on what local press has referred to as a “charm offensive,” through transit-sponsored speed dating, anime festivals, and even a 1980s prom-themed party at a train station east of San Francisco.
The campaign did not schedule the World Cup match but is hoping the high-profile encounter involving the U.S. national team will serve as a very public test of the systems’ function, and a chance to remind both regular and infrequent users of their value.
“It's an opportunity to remind people of what public transit means on a large scale,” said Jeff Cretan, a spokesperson for the ballot-measure campaign, funded largely by a coalition of business groups and labor unions. “You can't welcome 100,000 people if you don't have a way to get them around — these big, celebratory events just don’t happen if we don’t have public transit.”
LONDON — U.K. ambassadors from missions across the world have returned and are watching the England-Democratic Republic of Congo match with their London-based opposite numbers in the Gold Room of Lancaster House, the U.K. Foreign Office’s opulent mansion in Westminster. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is due to attend.
Britain’s ambassador to the DRC is watching the match alongside the Congolese ambassador to the U.K. They swapped jerseys from their two nations at the start.
BELGRADE, Serbia — The blue-clad throngs who arrive in Santa Clara, California, today for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s match against the United States will not only be rooting for a national team that has already advanced farther in a World Cup than ever before. They will also be cheering for Palestine.
That has been a staple of every stop made by Bosnian fans on their movements through North America, from a fan march in Toronto to the streets of Los Angeles before the Switzerland match to the stands in Seattle. It reflects a strong current of pro-Palestinian solidarity in the Muslim-majority Balkan nation, where many draw a direct line between their own war and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In 1990s, a coalition of U.S. and European powers, fresh off the internationalist euphoria that followed the end of the Cold War, were determined that the war crimes in Bosnia receive the highest and most professional response international justice could offer.
They set up the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity across the region were subjected to rigorous trials led by international prosecutors and judges.
This is how Bosnia spent a painstaking 25 years putting the perpetrators of its worst wartime crimes on trial, culminating in a genocide conviction for those responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, carried out over three days in early July 1995. It is the only European country since the Nuremberg trials to have pursued such action.
Bosnian diaspora communities — many traveling in large numbers to watch the matches in the U.S. — along with people back home, feel a strong connection to what they see as the plight of the Palestinians and the absence of international criminal prosecution for the crimes they believe Israel is committing in Gaza.
The issue is further inflamed by the fact that Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik — the single most divisive figure in the country and the most fervent denier of the Srebrenica genocide — has weaponized the legacy of the war to curry favor with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Željka Cvijanović, a fellow member of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats now serving as the Serb representative to the country’s three-headed presidency, also visited Israel in late June.
Many of the other World Cup competitors whose fans most fervently embraced the Palestinian cause — including Jordanians who wore keffiyehs to their matches in Santa Clara — have been eliminated from the tournament.
NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has spent much of the last month displaying his intense soccer fandom, just said during a press conference on security plans for a busy July Fourth weekend that France and Norway would be playing. He corrected himself after Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said something to him in an aside: In fact it will be Brazil and Norway facing off at the Meadowlands on Sunday. France played Sweden there yesterday and Norway in Boston last Friday.
LONDON — Much of Westminster will knock off work at 5 p.m. U.K. time for England’s round of 32 match against the Democratic Republic of Congo. Presumptive PM Andy Burnham is planning to watch with aides, while Keir Starmer, the man he is likely to replace on July 20, plans to watch in 10 Downing Street. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has a shadow Cabinet meeting at 4 p.m. but is set to end it promptly so she can watch from her suite of opposition offices in parliament.
The England football legend who conceded the “goal of the century” and Hand of God goals to Diego Maradona at the 1986 World Cup is now ... trying to influence the European Union's budget negotiations.
Former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton is a supporter of an online gambling tax. The idea was proposed in April by the European Parliament to help fund the bloc's €2 trillion budget from 2028 to 2034, and has since won the backing of several governments.
A former gambling-addict-turned-campaigner, Shilton told POLITICO in Brussels that a new levy would starve betting companies of revenue that they would otherwise spend on advertising to lure people into gambling.
"There's so much competition between gambling companies that they'll go to any extent to advertise and drag people in," Shilton said during a visit to Brussels last week with his wife and fellow campaigner, Steph.
The Shiltons campaigned for the British government to ban betting ads from Premier League shirts: "For youngsters especially, seeing their heroes in photos with a gambling company on it is not good." They argued that having fewer gamblers would result in lower debt levels.
The EU's online gambling tax — which is estimated to generate €1.9 billion per year — is being opposed by Malta, whose economy heavily relies on online gambling firms.
Maltese firms "will not engage with us at all. If anything, they've tried to shut us [down]," said Steph. "They window dress, but deep down they're after everybody's money ... Simple as that," echoed Peter.
President Donald Trump does not plan to attend tonight's do-or-die match between the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to a White House official, who says Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will lead the government's delegation to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Trump, who is traveling to North Darkota today, has yet to attend any matches thus far in the World Cup, although he is expected at the July 19 final in New Jersey.
Other Cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, have represented the United States at its previous three matches in the tournament. Lutnick will be joined by White House FIFA World Cup Task Force czar Andrew Giuliani.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Tuesday that he “danced a happy dance” when Iran was knocked out of the FIFA World Cup — unusually blunt remarks from the official whose department is overseeing security at the U.S. games.
"I'm just glad they're done, and they're not coming back," Mullin said. "I was so happy when we were able to pull their visas and said they could leave U.S. soil, and I might have sung a song or two, or maybe danced a happy dance."
The World Cup is no stranger to geopolitics, but his comments this week underscore just how politically fraught this tournament cycle has become.
Indeed, Iran’s participation in the tournament had been in doubt for months. After Trump ordered military strikes against Iran, FIFA President Gianni Infantino conducted shuttle diplomacy between Washington and Tehran to avoid a boycott that some feared would delegitimize the world’s largest sporting event. The administration ended up creating a unique arrangement where Iran would play its matches in Tijuana, Mexico — flying in the day before each match and out immediately after.
Mullin’s remarks came after he addressed employees from across the federal government at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Special Events Coordination Center, which coordinated security planning for the expanded 48-team tournament.
Speaking with reporters afterward, Mullin vigorously defended the administration's decision to impose unprecedented travel restrictions on the Iranian national team, arguing U.S. officials had gone out of their way to accommodate the squad while protecting national security.
He also dismissed criticisms from Iranian officials who had complained publicly that the restrictions on their national team were unfair and disrupted the team's preparation.
"That wasn't accurate. They — of course, you can't trust anything Iran is saying," he said.
According to Mullin, the administration had initially planned to admit the team five days before its opening match, but Iran sought to arrive even earlier. Instead, FIFA worked with U.S. and Mexican officials to establish a base camp in Tijuana, roughly a 45 minute flight from Los Angeles, where Iran played its opening matches.
"We worked with Mexico, talked with our counterparts there, and we talked with [Mexican] President [Claudia] Sheinbaum and it was agreed to allow them to come to Tijuana," Mullin said. "They could stay there rather than come into the United States earlier."
Mullin argued the Trump administration provided accommodations unavailable to any other team: Customs and Border Protection officers processed the team's biometrics in Tijuana before each flight so players could bypass normal inspections upon landing in the United States, and federal air marshals accompanied the delegation to ensure safe travel.
"We didn't do that for any other team," he said.
Mullin also rejected complaints that the team had to leave immediately after matches, comparing the arrangement to NFL teams routinely flying home after games.
"The game was over. Let them get back to the hotel, their base camp, where they're at," he said, noting that the U.S. men's national team similarly flew back to its Southern California base after a match in Seattle.
Behind the scenes, Mullin said Iran presented by far the greatest security challenge of any delegation participating in the tournament.
"There wasn't a single team — not a single team — we had to spend more time with, by far, dealing with what Iran was trying to do," he said.
Mullin alleged Iranian officials attempted to bring into the U.S. numerous individuals with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including personnel who had never previously traveled with the national team. He also said two individuals presented as media members had connections to IRGC intelligence and claimed another applicant was the subject of an international warrant.
"They were playing games the whole time," Mullin said. "I've talked about them enough. They're gone, they're out of the tournament, we don't deal with them anymore."
Sixty-two percent of Brits say they would feel pride if England won the World Cup, well above the number recorded in France but below Spain in the latest POLITICO Poll. Just 47 percent of Brits say they would feel pride if Scotland won the World Cup, which is convenient because Scotland is not going to win the World Cup.
You can follow other findings from our five-country POLITICO Poll project here.
Germany didn’t just crash out of the World Cup on Monday night. For some, the defeat looked like something bigger: yet another national institution losing its nerve.
The 2014 World Cup champion, which has struggled at every major tournament since 2016, suffered a bruising defeat against Paraguay, losing 3-4 on penalties to be dumped out of the tournament hosted in the Americas.
But Die Mannschaft is not the only German national institution failing to live up to expectations.
“This national team plays the way this federal government governs: big on ambition, short on resolve. Everyone struggles on their own, no one takes responsibility, and when luck finally does appear, the goal doesn’t count,” wrote German Member of the European Parliament Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann on X, referring to a controversially disallowed goal made during overtime, which would have brought Germany victory.
There is “always a link between sport and politics,” said professor of political science Alexander Straßner — and Europe’s largest economy is no exception.
Much like its men’s soccer team, over the last decade, the country’s automotive sector and industrial backbone have lost much of their former shine.
When Germany crushed Brazil 7-1 in the 2014 World Cup semifinals before going on to win football’s most prestigious tournament for a fourth time, Volkswagen was on the verge of becoming the world’s largest automaker. Last week, that same company announced tens of thousands of job cuts, with major automotive supplier Bosch planning similarly large-scale layoffs.
Unemployment in the country has now climbed to its highest level since the Covid pandemic, and economic growth remains weak.
A nation once synonymous with delivering on performance, reliability, efficiency and engineering excellence is now better known for its chronically delayed trains, infrastructure mega-projects plagued by years of holdups and ballooning costs, and ailing automotive industry.
Germany’s international standing has taken a hit too: After Chancellor Friedrich Merz told students at a high school that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by the Iranian regime, U.S. President Donald Trump responded by attacking the German leader on Truth Social and threatening Berlin’s nightmare scenario: a withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany.
Add to that the government’s very low approval ratings and the far-right Alternative for Germany party rising in the polls, many Germans don’t think Merz can turn things around.
The chancellor’s coalition government has struggled to deliver major economic reforms, with only a planned pension overhaul generating slight optimism among political observers.
Meanwhile, Merz seems unable to read the public mood — whether in politics or soccer.
“Even though the loss hurts: What a game, @DFB_Team! Your determination and team spirit throughout this World Cup inspired our country. We’re proud of you,” wrote the chancellor on X after the final whistle late Monday night, garnering ridicule and pushback from German fans.
German media outlet Tagesspiegel reported the post was accidentally published by a junior member of the chancellor’s staff, who selected the wrong prewritten message, but then altered its report saying that this version of events “apparently did not fully reflect the process.”
The end of Die Mannschaft‘s World Cup ambitions should not necessarily be taken as an irrefutable sign of Germany’s imminent defeat.
The country still has hope, argued Straßner: “In a political culture shaped by negativity … the decline of the West is always said to be just around the corner, with the state the national team held up as the latest omen. First the national team collapses, then society itself. That is utter nonsense.”
