Free Republic

In the lead-up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted primarily in the United States along with Mexico and Canada, there was widespread criticism from many European fans. Concern that the Trump administration's immigration policies would somehow impact fans' ability to enter the country. Complaints that the host stadiums, places like Los Angeles Stadium, Boston Stadium or Seattle Stadium would somehow prove unworthy of hosting World Cup matches. Those concerns and complaints have proven to be wildly unfounded. The atmosphere in Los Angeles for the U.S. Men's National Team opening match win over Paraguay was widely praised. To the point...

X user @FreddyLA7, from Germany, has more than 500,000 followers and has been posting enthusiastically about his experience exploring the South. He began his road trip nearly a week ago, according to his posts. He raved about how green Georgia is, writing, "it’s crazy," and posted a picture of a Taco Bell and a pile of food, declaring the fast-food chain "The holy land." Freddy took in some "Stranger Things" filming locations and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park and raved about his experience at Walmart. "Just had our first Waffle House experience at 1 a.m.," he posted,...

The parent company of Sam Adams said its Boston Taproom ran out of the brand's flagship Boston Lager over the weekend because Scotland soccer fans in Boston for the 2026 World Cup drank four times as much as the bar usually sells. Boston Beer Co. said in a news release that from Thursday to Sunday, the Tartan Army -- Scotland's supporters organization -- drank four times what the company normally stocks during a typical four-day holiday stretch like the Fourth of July, adding that it had to schedule an emergency delivery of beer Saturday morning and are adding extra deliveries...

With Scottish football fans in Boston, bars are saying their beer is getting drunken faster than on St. Patrick’s Day or a sports championship — the Dubliner had its biggest week ever! But first, fans of Iraq and Norway were partying ahead of Tuesday’s game, and what travel on the MBTA trains to Boston Stadium was like.

Europeans visiting the United States for the World Cup are traveling across the country, leaving many of them awestruck at American culture. Not only are they happy to be here, but many are visiting our best attractions — Buc-ees, Bass Pro Shops, Waffle House, and even Major League Baseball games — rather than the typical tourist destinations.Anti-Americanism has run rampant in the United States in recent years. These European fans show the world that America and its citizens are more than the propaganda pushed by the corporate media.Many of them have taken to the internet to show what they’ve found...

Thomas Partey will miss Ghana's opening match of the 2026 World Cup against Panama after being denied entry to Canada. Ghana start their World Cup campaign Wednesday in Toronto, but Partey, 32, will not be present after the Canadian government denied his visa application. Partey has been charged with seven counts of rape and one count of sexual assault by London's Metropolitan Police and is awaiting trial. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. It was confirmed last month that Partey's trial on rape charges, originally set for November at Southwark Crown Court, has been pushed back to start...

Slàinte! The Scottish national team kicks off World Cup play in Boston Saturday, but their fans treated their transatlantic flights like a bottomless pub crawl — and drained every drop of booze before touching the tarmac. The kilt-clad Scots entered Logan International Airport ready to rumble — “been drinking since one o’clock in the morning when I got up,” said David Wood as he arrived on US soil. “We ran out of beer.” A flight from the UK to the US usually lasts around seven hours, so when the beer ran dry, the Scots switched to wine, the pilot told...

FIFA has left hotels across the US in the lurch after mass booking rooms in host cities before cancelling the majority of them.One host city hit particularly hard by Fifa’s movements ahead of the World Cup has been Kansas City, Missouri.Per the Kansas City Star, Fifa reserved up to 5000 rooms per night for many of the evenings that its officials and business partners would be in town.That means that Fifa will have reserved tens of thousands of rooms across the month-long tournament in the city alone.But as soccer’s greatest international tournament drew closer, the governing body canceled the majority...

A World Cup referee from Somalia who was denied entry to the United States was received by a crowd of supporters and officials Wednesday as he arrived home in the capital of Mogadishu, where he said he plans to be at the next World Cup and urged Somali youth to be proud of their country. Omar Artan was set to be the first referee from Somalia to officiate at a World Cup after making FIFA’s final list for the tournament. He is one of Africa’s top referees and was named the continent’s best male referee in 2025. He was denied...

SWITZERLAND’S World Cup stars are on red alert after being warned of SNAKES next to their training camp. The Swiss have jetted out to San Diego to prepare for their World Cup opener against Qatar on June 13. The team are already dealing with humid temperatures in the US as they get used to their new surroundings. But the squad have another alarming problem to deal with after a ‘snake area’ was marked up on the map of their training camp. The official Switzerland team account posted a picture of their facility with labels of its different sections. They showed...

Iran announced its 26-man roster for the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Monday, and Sardar Azmoun, nicknamed the "Iranian Messi," was not on it. Coach Amir Ghalenoei had Azmoun dropped from Iran’s national soccer squad in March, and it was reportedly due to a social media post that angered Iranian authorities. Azmoun, a 31-year-old striker who is well known for his time playing for Bayer Leverkusen and AS Roma, posted a photo alongside the Emir of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is a known U.S. ally and has shown support for President Donald Trump’s involvement in the war...

Global betting revenue for the upcoming World Cup is likely to be “in excess of $50 billion”, betting expert Darren Small told AFP, for an event he labelled “the biggest circus in town.” The revenue will be significantly higher than the 2022 edition, partly because the quadrennial football fiesta has been enlarged to 48 teams from the 32 in Qatar. Another factor according to Small, Managing Director of Managed Trading Services at Sportradar, is punters have become more “interested in the celebrity of a player” than in the old days of betting simply on a team. Sportradar Group AG is...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is planning to hold ‘massive’ World Cup watch parties in homeless drug-addict haven MacArthur Park. She claims they will be a boost for “Latino-owned businesses hit by ICE raids.” Bass revealed the plan during a podcast appearance this week, saying MacArthur Park would serve as one of more than 100 community celebration sites during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. “We’ll have a massive watch party in MacArthur Park,” Bass said while describing her vision for the tournament.

Iran will play all three of its Group G matches on American soil yet base its operations across the border in Mexico... Mehdi Taj, head of the Iranian Football Federation, announced Saturday that the team's training base would relocate from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, a border city in Baja California. He cited visa complications and security concerns stemming from the U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran that began on February 28. "We will be based in the Tijuana camp, which is near the Pacific Ocean and on the border between Mexico and the United States," Taj said in a video posted...

Congo's team must isolate for 21 days or risk the ability to enter the U.S. for the World Cup as the country deals with an outbreak of Ebola, said Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force for the World Cup, to ESPN on Friday. Giuliani said the U.S. has told FIFA, the Congolese national team and the Congolese government that the team must maintain a bubble in Belgium, where it is currently training and is scheduled to play two warmup games. "We've been very clear to Congo that they should maintain the integrity of their bubble...

Mayor Zohran Mamdani boasted Thursday that the Big Apple will hold a lottery for 1,000 discounted FIFA World Cup tickets for lucky winners – after the city kicked-in $90 million for the tournament. The tickets will be $50 for those lucky enough to win the pitch, coming with free round-trip bus rides to the matches in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, Mamdani announced during an event in Harlem. The soccer-loving socialist made a show of contending no taxpayer money directly went toward the low-cost tickets – an assertion that quickly had insiders crying foul. “FIFA will be raking in billions with...

The World Cup was supposed to provide a tourism boom for the US, but now the fear is it may never materialise. A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city. The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short". The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all...

The Trump administration is suspending a requirement that foreign visitors from certain countries pay as much as $15,000 in bonds as long as they are confirmed FIFA World Cup ticket holders, the State Department told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The department imposed the bond requirement last year for countries that it said had high rates of people overstaying their visas and other security issues as part of the Republican administration's broader crackdown on immigration. Travelers to the United States from 50 countries are required to pay the new bond, and five of those countries have qualified for the World...

The biggest sporting event in world history might have a less-flattering title soon: the most expensive sporting event in world history. The World Cup, which kicks off June 11 in Mexico City, has become a carnival for the rich so expensive it resembles a monthlong Met Gala. Just last Thursday, FIFA rolled out a $32,970 seat for the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium, triple the cost of its most expensive ticket before then. Even in the group stage, tickets are priced in the hundreds of dollars. So is parking and, in some cities — including New York and Boston...

The man who ran security at 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Games — where a bomber killed two and wounded more than 100 — warns that Iranian “sleeper cells” are likely plotting attacks during next month’s World Cup, as federal officials race to secure the 39-day competition. “I’m fairly confident there are Iranian sleeper cells or surrogate sleeper cells, and this would be an incredible opportunity for sleeper cells to attack,” Former LAPD Deputy Chief Bill Rathburn told The Post. His comments came after the feds warned about Iranian “prepositioned sleeper assets” in the US while the...