Washington: A FIFA employee is trapped in the place French blue suitHe enters with a silver bag. Ceremonially and situationally, he places it on a platform and wears rubber gloves, as if he were about to begin an outdoor operation. After a moment, the puzzle was finished: luminous, from the bag World Cup showsThe trophy is held by the Argentine team at least until the resumption of play on June 11. Then, the goal turns into a desire: dozens of journalists and photographers take turns taking selfies of their own. The scene happens before Donga (Brazil’s captain when his team won the World Cup in that country in 1994), Marcelo Balboa (a player for the United States in that World Cup), Atiba Hutchinson (Canada’s captain in the last World Cup) and Luis Hernandez (Mexico’s top scorer in France ’98) take to the stage to speak at an event promoted as “FIFA Legends”. The talk is, more than that, the first steps leading to the World Cup draw, an event that for a few hours on Friday will turn into a solemn event. John Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts In the middle of the world.
Here and now, in an adjacent room, the panelists take turns saying what they are expected to say. Nobody breaks the script: “My candidate is Canada,” Hutchinson says. Everywhere, everything is in an embryonic state, so much so that you have to ask several times until you find out the exact location of this event. The sun warms workers who, on a crane, place World Cup posters at the entrance to the Kennedy Hotel. the Four degrees Noon gradually turns to zero, on a normal day at the beginning of December in this city. There is, outside this space, no knowledge about this topic in the city centre. The tourists standing in front of the White House, two kilometers from here, do not seem concerned What will happen to New Zealand? Friday. In any case, it will be a powerful flash that will shine only when Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump The ceremony opened at noon local time.
The hustle and bustle, behind closed doors, has to do with the novelty of the matter: “Logistics will have to be tailored to more people than ever before,” one FIFA official told this envoy. A very large World Cup tournament requires representatives of 42 teams that have already qualified to stay in this cityIn addition to a very large number of guests and sponsors. All under the umbrella of the multinational company that frequently threatens to go one step further and bring the next episode (2030) to 64 participants. Don’t they attack the goose that lays the golden eggs? “I like this look,” Dunga says. From the theater is reading a fictional text.
Later, when the “Legends” leave the stage, the man in the French blue suit appears again. Convinced that he must honor his mysterious man character, he barely says his name: “Frank.” But he did not reveal his last name, he comments, as if he was working for FIFA instead He was a Pentagon agentWhich can be reached on foot by simply crossing the Potomac River, which separates the District of Columbia from the State of Virginia. Who knows if Frank imagined in his dream that he would carry the treasure there at night. Now, who can really believe that this is the original trophy and not one of the dozens of replicas that FIFA transports around the world when it needs it?
Regarding the magnitude, thousands of Argentines are expected to arrive at the World Cup, riding the cheap dollar + the “Here Come the Champions” combo, during Wednesday morning. Andrew Giuliani releasedExecutive Director of Task Force From the White House, he was appointed by President Donald Trump, in a press conference related to security. The official responsible for overseeing planning for the tournament, which will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico, was emphatic in highlighting that “troublemakers” would not be tolerated and that “security and hospitality can coexist” at FIFA’s biggest event.
In May, before the recent Club World Cup finals in the United States in which Boca and River participated, the Ministry of Security, led by Patricia Bullrich, had provided the North American authorities with a list of more than 15,000 people were banned from entering local football stadiums Because of his violent behavior.
“I don’t want to talk about specific lists, but I will say that we have created an international police cooperation center where we can work with law enforcement agencies in each country that has been designated on issues like the ones you mentioned,” he said in response to a question from a Los Angeles Nacion reporter here. “This way, Argentine law enforcement agencies can identify problem actors, people who have had problems, things that may not be on the radar of the U.S. government at the World Cup.”
“We know that Argentine fans are traveling as they should for the 2022 World Cup champions. There is also a respected player playing in the United States, his name is Messiwhich some may know his name. “It’s not bad at all,” he joked, sparking laughter among journalists.
Last month, standing next to Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Infantino announced the launch of the “FIFA Card,” a prioritization system for foreign fans with tickets to matches to apply for a visa to the United States, one of the issues of greatest concern ahead of the 2026 tournament.
In collaboration with Guillermo Ediart