Germany says up to football body to decide any World Cup boycott

The German government said yesterday that the country’s football association should decide on any boycott of this year’s football World Cup co-hosted by the United States, over President Donald Trump’s Greenland threats.

Trump has targeted Germany among the eight European countries threatened with tariffs for their opposition to his drive to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

That has prompted some German politicians to question whether their country should participate in this year’s football World Cup, to be held between June 11 and July 19 in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a prominent lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU party, said that if Trump “puts his threats into practice and starts a trade war with the EU, I can hardly imagine that European countries will take part in the World Cup”.

“It must be clear that this would be the end of the transatlantic partnership with the US,” Kiesewetter told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.

Christiane Schenderlein, the state minister for sports, said in a statement sent to AFP: “Decisions on participation or boycotts at major sporting events lie solely with the competent sports associations, not with politicians.”

“This assessment should therefore be made by the respective associations – in this case, the German FA (DFB) and FIFA,” she said.

Voices from the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partner in Merz’s governing coalition, have also said a World Cup boycott should be on the table as Germany works out its response to Trump’s threats.

According a survey carried out by the INSA polling institute, 47 percent of Germans would be in favour of a World Cup boycott in the event of the US annexing Greenland, while 35 percent would be opposed.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has cultivated a close relationship with Trump, even creating a special “FIFA Peace Prize” given to Trump at the draw for the World Cup in December.