Visas, Tickets... Trump: Why this World Cup feels hard to love?
6/11/202640 min
Nedum touches down in USA and joins Gabby & Mark to discuss the opening game of the World Cup 2026; How excited are the locals, dark horses for the tournament & more...
But with such a constant stream of controversy in the days leading up to the first match - fans fleeced for tickets, a Somali referee banned from entering US, national teams greeted by ICE on arrival and FIFA President Gianni Infantino's call for everyone to just "chill out" - has a World Cup ever been harder to love?
The Athletic's Adam Crafton also joins to debate whether the questions will actually stop, once the football starts?
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:02
This is a Global Player original podcast.
Gabby Logan· Host0:05
Yeah, he wasn't sorry for a lot in his speech yesterday, was he? Maybe sometimes it's good as well to just, you know... chill that might have made him look a little bit more empathetic and human.
Adam Crafton· Guest0:17
You can't simultaneously be the organization that, you know, has a strapline of uniting the world and float in and out of the Oval Office and hang out with heads of state and then make out essentially when the hits the fan. We're just a soccer tournament.
Nedum Onuoha· Guest0:31
This is probably got the potential to be the best and worst World Cup that we've potentially ever seen.
Mark Chapman· Host0:36
What on earth are wolves doing? You've got a feel for him, haven't you?
Nedum Onuoha· Guest0:40
Every Middlesbrough fan in the world is like celebrating, saying, ha, take that.
Gabby Logan· Host0:43
I am never going to tell Roy Keane what to wear, but I am going to tell you not to wear shorts. LAUGHTER Welcome to the Sports Agents. Hello, Mark. Hello, Nadim.
Mark Chapman· Host1:00
Hi, Gabby. Hello. Look at Nadim in America, ready to go.
Gabby Logan· Host1:06
I'm a bit jealous. Are you chilled, though? Are you chillaxed?
Nedum Onuoha· Guest1:09
I'm so chillaxed. You know what I mean? Like I can walk around these streets of America. To be fair, I haven't sensed that the World Cup's going on.
Gabby Logan· Host1:16
My reference to chill was, of course, a command from Gianni Infantino that we should all just relax about referees being turned away at the door effectively and players being frisked and questioned for hours before they enter the country. But the