Weekend Hotakes: FIFA, Heat Domes, Public Money, and the global sport of looking away.

Seriously? We have to take a break from feminism to talk about FIFA?

Apparently, yes.

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And honestly, maybe it will be nice to talk about something other than feminism for a minute - especially the kind that keeps wandering hand-in-hand with anti-trafficking politics into Nordic Model nonsense and then acting surprised when criminalization does what criminalization always does.

But this is not a post about the Nordic Model.

Mostly.

Because if we have learned anything from the annual Super Bowl trafficking panic ritual, it is that major sporting events are never just major sporting events. They become convenient stages for moral panic, police funding, surveillance expansion, anti-trafficking theater, and breathless claims about “protecting women and girls” that somehow rarely translate into housing, health care, labor protections, immigration support, reentry services, or actually listening to sex workers and trafficking survivors.

So here we are, taking a brief detour from feminism to talk about soccer. Except, of course, it is not really a detour. It is the same conversation in cleats.

This weekend, the FIFA World Cup rolls on across North America, and yes, the soccer is exciting. The penalties are dramatic. The fans are loud. The branding is shiny. The flags are waving. The whole thing has that familiar mega-event sparkle that says “community celebration,” while quietly whispering, “please do not look too closely at the budget, the police overtime, the displaced residents, the workers, the heat index, or the people being swept out of sight.”

So naturally, we looked.

As of this Fourth of July weekend, the 2026 World Cup is not just a sports story. It is also a story about climate, public spending, policing, homelessness, surveillance, labor, and the very American habit of finding billions for spectacle while telling poor people there is simply no money for housing, health care, legal support, reentry, harm reduction, or survival.

Let’s start with the weather, because apparently, we are now hosting global sporting events inside a convection oven. Reuters reported that climate scientists have linked the extreme heat and humidity affecting the World Cup to climate change driven by fossil fuel use. A heat dome is pushing dangerous conditions across parts of the United States and Canada, with player safety groups warning that some matches could exceed recommended heat safety thresholds.

The Guardian reported that nine group-stage matches had already been played in extreme heat, with some reaching levels that the global players’ union FIFPRO says should prompt delays or postponements. FIFA has added hydration breaks and some weather precautions, but critics are still asking the obvious question: why are athletes, stadium workers, vendors, security staff, fans, and unhoused people being asked to endure dangerous heat so the show can go on?

Because that is always the rule with mega-events: the show must go on. The people may collapse, but the sponsors must be hydrated.

And speaking of sponsors, let’s talk money. FIFA is expected to collect billions from this tournament, while host cities are left fighting over security costs, infrastructure demands, fan zones, transportation, emergency planning, and crowd control. Fortune reported that FIFA could collect an estimated $8.9 billion from the 2026 World Cup while U.S. host cities could face a collective shortfall of more than $250 million.

Meanwhile, Congress approved $625 million in federal funding to help U.S. host cities cover expenses like security and FIFA fan festivals, but distribution delays left cities scrambling before the tournament.

Read that again: hundreds of millions in public money for security and fan festivals.

Not housing.

Not health care.

Not reentry.

Not violence prevention.

Not a community-based crisis response.

Not legal aid.

Not food security.

Security and fan festivals.

Which brings us to the part of the World Cup story that rarely makes the glossy ads: displacement. Advocates in Atlanta feared the World Cup would intensify arrests, displacement, and criminalization of unhoused residents, echoing the city’s history during the 1996 Olympics, when thousands of unhoused people were arrested or pushed out of sight.

Other host-city residents and organizers have raised concerns that the World Cup could deepen housing crises through short-term rentals, rising costs, sweeps, and the familiar pressure to make poverty invisible before tourists arrive.

This is where our work intersects with the soccer field. Because criminalization does not disappear during mega-events. It expands. It gets uniforms. It gets overtime. It gets “public safety” language. It gets temporary command centers, federal grants, and task forces. The people most likely to be targeted are the same people always targeted: unhoused people, sex workers, migrants, street vendors, drug users, poor people, LGBTQ+ people, Black and brown communities, and anyone whose survival makes a city look less marketable to tourists.

And then comes the anti-trafficking performance.

We have seen this movie before. Every year, around the Super Bowl, the same panic machine starts humming. Hotels are trained to “spot trafficking.” Police announce special operations. Politicians hold press conferences. Headlines warn of a massive trafficking surge. And sex workers, once again, are treated as evidence, bait, suspects, victims-in-waiting, or public relations props.

The problem is not that trafficking is not real. Trafficking is real. Exploitation is real. Violence is real. Coercion is real. Survival sex is real. The problem is that mega-event anti-trafficking campaigns too often collapse all of that complexity into a policing campaign that targets the very people it claims to protect.

When law enforcement uses sporting events as a justification for sweeps, stings, surveillance, hotel monitoring, online crackdowns, and increased police contact, sex workers do not become safer. They become easier to isolate. They have fewer screening tools. They have more reasons to avoid reporting violence. They are pushed into riskier conditions. And trafficking survivors who are undocumented, criminalized, poor, using drugs, or afraid of losing their children often learn the same lesson over and over again: help comes with handcuffs.

So no, FIFA is not “beside the point.” FIFA is the point.

It is the same pattern with a different jersey.

First, officials announce a major event. Then they promise economic opportunity. Then the money flows upward. Then, the police presence increases. Then, people living in poverty are treated as a public relations problem. Then, anti-trafficking rhetoric gets used to justify surveillance and enforcement. Then everyone acts shocked when the “legacy” of the event looks a lot like debt, displacement, criminalization, and private profit.

But don’t worry. There will be commemorative merch.

Canada is already asking whether the price was worth it. Reports have noted that Toronto’s cost estimates ballooned dramatically, with public spending reaching enormous levels while activists criticized the displacement and mistreatment of unhoused residents. Much of the revenue from media rights and ticket sales flows primarily to FIFA rather than local communities.

That is the mega-event business model in one sentence: the public pays, FIFA profits, and poor people get told to move along.

For sex workers and people in survival economies, these events bring another layer of risk. Large sports events often come with increased policing, moral panic, anti-trafficking campaigns, hotel surveillance, online monitoring, and law enforcement stings. Officials claim these efforts are about protection, but too often they result in the same thing criminalization always produces: more fear, less screening, less safety, fewer trusted reporting options, and more reasons for people to avoid calling for help.

If a city can mobilize thousands of officers, millions in security funding, and massive coordination systems for FIFA, then it can also mobilize housing, health care, violence prevention, and survivor-led support.

It chooses not to.

That is the update.

Enjoy the soccer. Cheer for your team. Watch the penalties. Admire the athleticism. But don’t let the spectacle do what spectacle is designed to do: distract us from who pays the cost.

Because behind every mega-event is the same uncomfortable question:

If governments can find public money to protect FIFA’s party, why can’t they find public money to protect the people who actually live here?

This weekend, the answer is sweating in the streets.