BOSTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has threatened to relocate World Cup matches set to be played next year in suburban Boston, after suggesting that parts of the city had been “taken over” by unrest.
Foxborough, Massachusetts, home to the NFL’s New England Patriots and about 30 miles from Boston, is set to stage matches as the U.S. cohosts the 2026 World Cup with Mexico and Canada. Trump was asked about Boston’s mayor, Michelle Wu, a Democrat whom he called “intelligent” but “radical left.”
“We could take them away,” Trump said of the World Cup games. “I love the people of Boston and I know the games are sold out. But your mayor is not good.”
He repeated those threats Wednesday.
Trump has previously suggested he could declare cities “not safe” for the 104-game soccer tournament and alter a detailed hosting plan that FIFA confirmed in 2022. It includes games at NFL stadiums near New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
World Cup host sites aren’t up to Trump. The 11 U.S. cities — plus three in Mexico and two in Canada — are contracted with FIFA, which would face significant logistical and legal issues to make changes in the eight months before the June 11 kickoff.
“It’s FIFA’s tournament, FIFA’s jurisdiction, FIFA makes those decisions,” the soccer body’s vice president Victor Montagliani said earlier this month at a sports business conference in London.
The organization seemed to soften its stance somewhat on Wednesday, saying in a statement that “safety and security are the top priorities at all FIFA events worldwide” and noting that precautions are “obviously the governments' responsibility, and they decide what is in the best interest for public safety.”
“We hope every one of our 16 Host Cities will be ready to successfully host and fulfill all necessary requirements,” the FIFA statement added.
Trump has insisted that “if somebody is doing a bad job, and if I feel there’s unsafe conditions, I would call Gianni – the head of FIFA who’s phenomenal -- and I would say, ‘Let’s move into another location’ and they would do that.”
The president meant FIFA head Gianni Infantino, a close ally. Trump said Infantino “wouldn’t love to do it, but he’d do it very easily.”
Speaking on a local podcast Wednesday, Wu questioned how Trump could take away the games with less than a year to go. She said most everything is already “locked down by contract” so no single person “even if they live in the White House currently can undo it.”
“There’s no ability to take away the World Cup games,” Wu said. “There’s no real threat when it comes to saying cities are so unsafe that they can’t host the games.”
Among the seven matches that will be played at Gillette Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough will be five group stage matches, one match in the round of 32 and a quarterfinal match on July 9, 2026. The news of so many big games was a surprise to local organizers.
“The later in the tournament, the more eyeballs,” said Mike Loynd, head of Boston's World Cup organizing committee, when the schedule was announced last year. “For us, it’s just a matter of excitement. ... For us, it’s a perfect schedule. I don’t think FIFA could have done a better job.”
The tournament is expected to bring $1.1 billion in local economic impact, create over 5,000 jobs, and generate more than $60 million of tax revenue throughout the region, according to organizers. They also expect that more than 2 million visitors will come to New England throughout the tournament’s 39-day span.
Gillette Stadium is operated by Robert Kraft, who owns the NFL’s New England Patriots and Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution.
Kraft served as honorary chair of the United Bid to help bring the World Cup back to the United States. In a 2024 interview on “The Breakfast Club” he described himself as a “social friend” of Trump beginning in the 1990s shortly after he purchased the Patriots. He said in that interview that the only donation he’d ever made to Trump was a “strong donation to his inauguration” following his 2016 election.
But Kraft also gifted the president a diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring during his first term after the Patriots won the NFL’s championship to cap the 2016 season. Sitting presidents typically receive gifts from sports teams during celebratory White House visits — a personalized jersey is standard — but Kraft gave Trump a ring as well, the team confirmed at the time.
Kraft decided after the team’s April 2017 visit to have a ring made for Trump so he would have something special to display in his presidential library, the team said. But Kraft said in that same 2024 “Breakfast Club” interview that he hadn’t spoken to Trump since the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Boston and its mayor have been frequent targets of the Trump administration for much of the year.
Trump and his allies have focused their attacks on the city's so-called sanctuary city polices and how much police should support deportations. In September, the Trump administration sued the city, arguing its sanctuary city policies are illegal under federal law and the city’s refusal to cooperate with immigration authorities has resulted in the release of dangerous criminals who should be deported.
The Trump administration has already deployed National Guard troops to Washington and Memphis, and efforts to do so in Chicago and Portland, Oregon, have sparked legal fights. Democratic and Republican leaders across Massachusetts have pushed back against the National Guard deployment in Boston and Wu, who is running unopposed for reelection, often cites the city's historical low crime rates.
Wu touts the fact that gun violence fell to the lowest level on record in her first year in office and has continued to decline. The city saw a historical low number of homicides in 2024 with 24 — but the city has surpassed that number so far in 2025 with 27, the police department said.
Associated Press writer Kyle Hightower in Foxborough, Mass. contributed to this report.
FILE - President Donald Trump holds the FIFA World Cup Winners Trophy as FIFA President Gianni Infantino looks on during an announcement in the Oval Office of the White House, Aug. 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
