Journalists must stop framing sports boycotts as yes-or-no questions

The commentary was first published in Danish in Journalisten on 29 January 2026.

Here we go again. The record is spinning, the needle drops into the groove, and the same ritual begins: Should athletes, national teams, fans, or politicians boycott a major sporting event hosted by a country acting in clear conflict with democratic values and fundamental rights?

We have seen it before. The Olympic Games in Beijing. The European Football Championship in Ukraine. The Winter Olympics in Sochi. The FIFA World Cup in Russia. And, most recently, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar – arguably the most debated sporting event of the modern era.

Now the record is spinning once more around the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Boycott or not?

Politicians point to sports federations. Sports federations point back to politicians. Everyone waits, hesitates, and postpones taking responsibility. Meanwhile, fans, commentators, and opinion-makers search for a position,  while large parts of the media keep framing a complex issue as a simple yes-or-no question.

Why the boycott question misses the point

The boycott debate is a simple, confrontational, and clickable frame. But it is also deeply inadequate. When journalists reduces complex and structural sports-political issues to a single yes-or-no question, audiences are left poorly informed. In that sense, journalism fails its own democratic function.

The willingness to raise sports political debates is, in itself, commendable. It shows that sport is taken seriously as a political and social force. FIFA's World Cup in Qatar marked a turning point, with debates becoming more nuanced and journalistic coverage beginning to address power, accountability, and governance structures within international sport.

That is precisely why it is so disappointing to see the debate now restart from scratch – framed by journalists in the usual fashion. The same groove. The same ritual.

The debate surrounding the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup – hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada – is already being pulled into the same predictable trenches: Either you support a boycott and claim moral purity, or you oppose it and are accused of compromising your values.

This framing is not only politically shallow. It is journalistically unambitious.

The deeper power structures journalism must confront

If we are serious about sports politics, journalists must shift their focus away from boycotts as the final act and toward the international sports-political reality in which these events are embedded. 

That means sustained scrutiny of FIFA: its enormous power, closed decision-making processes, and persistent lack of democratic accountability. It also means asking why major tournaments repeatedly end up in the hands of states where the sport becomes secondary to broader political agendas.

This is where journalism carries a decisive responsibility.

The same applies to coverage of how sport is used politically in the United States, particularly under Donald Trump and within the broader American political culture. Sport functions as a tool for nation branding, power projection, and narratives of strength. The 2026 World Cup will not simply be a football celebration, but part of a political project in which sport is used to mobilise, legitimise, and unite.

Media coverage matters. How the World Cup and FIFA are framed, when debates are activated, and which questions are prioritised are editorial choices. When journalists opt for conflict over context, they end up reproducing the very ritual they ought to interrogate.

That is why journalists should ask far more uncomfortable – and far more relevant – questions. 

How can FIFA continue to operate without meaningful political or legal oversight? Why do football authorities still cling to the myth that sport and politics can be separated, when sport is clearly and deeply politicised? And why does the responsibility to speak out so often fall on athletes and fans at the final stage, when key decisions were taken much earlier, behind closed doors?

It would serve media, policymakers, sports authorities, and fans alike to insist on that conversation. Not because boycotts are necessarily wrong. And not because they are necessarily right. But because journalism fails in its responsibility when the world’s biggest sporting event is reduced, once again, to such a simplistic question.

A more informed debate is a prerequisite for better decisions and perhaps even for action that reaches beyond symbolic gestures, which are quickly forgotten once the tournament begins. We also know this ritual all too well: when the ball starts rolling, the criticism fades. And so does the scrutiny.