Politics

It’s hot. Maybe too hot.

Published

1 week ago

June 13, 2026

High-stakes geopolitics aren’t the only external factor threatening to hijack the tournament.

Perhaps ironically for a competition hosted by a U.S. president who is highly skeptical about climate change and says assertions about rising temperatures have been made “by stupid people,” the heat is very likely to be a problem.

Heat waves have become a persistent part of Northern Hemisphere summers — each one made hotter, longer and more likely to occur as a result of man-made global warming. The locations of several stadiums across the U.S. and Mexico, as well as the peak-summer timing of the World Cup, are expected to put players and fans at risk of overheating.

The problem isn’t just heat, but also humidity. The combination of the two feels far hotter and is measured with wet-bulb temperature, which mimics how the human body cools off through sweating. A wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit can be fatal even to healthy people; the football players’ union FIFPRO says wet-bulb temperatures above 79 degrees — which can be reached through a combination of 86-degree heat and 50 percent humidity, for example — will affect performance and health, and 82-degree heat should prompt the postponement of a match.

When scientists last month ran the numbers, they found that 26 of 104 matches are expected to take place in conditions of at least 79-degree wet-bulb temperature. Five matches are estimated to breach the 82-degree wet-bulb barrier. And a peer-reviewed study found that during last year’s FIFA Club World Cup in the U.S., average wet-bulb temperature exceeded 82 degrees in 31 of 57 matches analyzed by scientists.

That study also found that high temperatures were associated with players covering less ground, forcing a change of tactics. Exhaustion sets in faster under high temperatures — at the Club World Cup, 10 players asked to be substituted in a single match. But heat doesn’t just affect gameplay. At the 2024 Copa America, an assistant referee collapsed in the heat and, last month, two people died during sports events held amid a heat wave in France.

As climate change continues to heat the planet, FIFA will have to grapple with the growing threat at every subsequent tournament. The 2030 men’s World Cup in Spain, Portugal and Morocco takes place in a global warming hotspot. The women’s World Cup next year will be in Brazil during a warming El Niño event, expected to supercharge the heating effect of climate change.

And that’s not even counting the other growing climate risks — from wildfire smoke to extreme rain — that threaten to disrupt future events.

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

9 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”