Donald Trump will not move World Cup matches, says Fifa vice-president

Any decision to move matches from World Cup cities must be taken by Fifa, not Donald Trump, a vice-president of the organisation has said.

Victor Montagliani, who is also the president of Concacaf, the confederation which covers North and Central America and the Caribbean, was speaking after the US president said this week he would move matches out of cities if he thought they could be “even a little bit dangerous for the World Cup”. He said San Francisco and Seattle were “run by radical left lunatics who don’t know what they’re doing”.

“It’s Fifa’s tournament, Fifa’s jurisdiction, Fifa makes those decisions,” the Canadian said to an audience at The Summit, part of Leaders Week London. “With all due respect to current world leaders, football is bigger than them and football will survive their regime and their government and their slogans.”

Montagliani, whose country is co-hosting the tournament with the US and Mexico, has frequently had to engage on diplomatic matters since the second Trump administration began. On the subject of Israel’s continued involvement in international football, which has been the subject of much debate in the past week, Montagliani said it was Uefa’s responsibility to take a decision.

“I respect that it’s a decision by Uefa. It’s their member, they have to deal with it and I respect not only the appropriate process, but whatever decision they make. Fifa get asked to deal with a lot of things by a lot of organisations, but first and foremost it’s a member of Uefa. No different than when I have to deal with a member of my region for whatever reason.”

On the contentious topic of Fifa competitions and their expanding reach, Montagliani said he was in favour of a bigger Club World Cup but against a 64-team World Cup for the centennial anniversary in 2030.

“I don’t see the argument for 64 teams,” he said. “It’s not just us but Uefa and Asia who are opposed to that. But the Club World Cup was a massive success. We need to work out what’s feasible, [what] changes we need to make about the number of teams and the caps on each country we had for this year.”

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