Jul 7, 2026 · 0 min · 11 segments
What does the FIFA World Cup tell us about geopolitics? Find out in this episode of the Frontlines podcast! For this episode, host Shaun Haney and geopolitical analyst Jacob Shapiro use the global…
And, I mean, the Cape Verde story by itself was worth the prize of admission, just the underdogs versus the Goliaths and everything else like that.
But of course we had to ruin that too with the president getting involved with FIFA and trying to lobby that they should get rid of this red card.
Yeah, for the occasional fan of world football or soccer as it's called in North America – Some people just becoming aware that FIFA is not exactly a totally innocent organization.
And like you mentioned, the change on the suspension due to the red card for the U.S. striker.
Just another example of where there is like this crossing of geopolitical swords between Some people saying, you know, it's it's outrageous.
Well, I don't know enough about soccer to know whether it was a red card or not, but I'll throw a few things or I'll throw a few logs in the fire that you're building right there.
Sports is one of the only unifying things we have left, especially in the United States.
I don't know if you feel this way in Canada, but when you think about communal experiences where everybody's having the same experience, in the United States, it's basically sports.
I think that's one of the reasons that sports franchises sports franchises have increased so much in value because these supremely wealthy guys are after this thing.
And we used to have lots more venues to have that kind of communal engagement where there wasn't politics, where there wasn't ideology and sports is the last thing there.
And the World Cup has been interesting because unlike, I feel like the Olympics has even been politicized.
There's an element of this World Cup that is that, that is we're all watching the same thing.
And, I mean, the Cape Verde story by itself was worth the prize of admission, just the underdogs versus the Goliaths and everything else like that.
But of course we had to ruin that too with the president getting involved with FIFA and trying to lobby that they should get rid of this red card.
Yeah, for the occasional fan of world football or soccer as it's called in North America – Some people just becoming aware that FIFA is not exactly a totally innocent organization.
And like you mentioned, the change on the suspension due to the red card for the U.S. striker.
Just another example of where there is like this crossing of geopolitical swords between Some people saying, you know, it's it's outrageous.
Well, I don't know enough about soccer to know whether it was a red card or not, but I'll throw a few things or I'll throw a few logs in the fire that you're building right there.
Sports is one of the only unifying things we have left, especially in the United States.
I don't know if you feel this way in Canada, but when you think about communal experiences where everybody's having the same experience, in the United States, it's basically sports.
I think that's one of the reasons that sports franchises sports franchises have increased so much in value because these supremely wealthy guys are after this thing.
And we used to have lots more venues to have that kind of communal engagement where there wasn't politics, where there wasn't ideology and sports is the last thing there.
And the World Cup has been interesting because unlike, I feel like the Olympics has even been politicized.
There's an element of this World Cup that is that, that is we're all watching the same thing.
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