Article by Daniel Grigore – Published Saturday, January 24, 2026, 6:04 p.m. / Updated Saturday, January 24, 2026, 6:04 p.m.
More and more voices in Germany are talking about the possibility of boycotting the World Championship in the USA, Canada and Mexico, in the context of global geopolitical tensions, with US President Donald Trump insisting on the annexation of Greenland, an ambition that could lead to the breakup of the NATO political-military alliance.
Jürgen Hardt did it in the first phasemember of the Christian-Democratic Union political formation, the party from which Chancellor Friedrich Merz comes.
He described it as “a last resort to get President Trump to reconsider the Greenland issue.”
Now, the president of St. Pauli, Oke Göttlich, also vice-president of the German Football Association, goes even further and urge decision makers to sit down to discuss this scenario!
An important name in German football calls for a boycott of the World Championship!
“What were the justifications for boycotting the Olympics in the 1980s? In my judgment, the potential danger is even greater now than it was then. We need to have this discussion“, said the manager of the Bundesliga club, quoted by Politico.
Furthermore, Göttlich accused Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, of inconsistency in the way he relates to political issues:
“What happened in Qatar was too politicized, but now we are completely apolitical? This really bothers me“.
These claims come in the context where Infantino has a close relationship with the US president. Recently, Trump received FIFA's first peace award granted by the football institution, on the grounds that Trump's presidency would have been “marked by actions to promote peace around the world”.
Precedents during the Cold War
It would not be the first time that geopolitical tensions would lead to the boycott of major sports competitions.
Iconic episodes occurred during the Cold War, the long period of rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union.
For example, in the 1980 Summer Olympics, hosted by Moscow, the Americans chose not to participate in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Four years later, the Olympic Games were held in the USA, in Los Angeles, and were boycotted by the communist Eastern Bloc countries, except Romania.
At that edition, Romania ranked 2nd in the medal ranking, with a total of 53 awards, of which 20 were gold.
