Jules Boykoff: Sportswashing, the FIFA 2026 World Cup, and the 2028 Olympic Games

As the 2026 FIFA World Cup begins in North America, Jules Boykoff asks us to look beyond the spectacle.

For millions of fans, the tournament will bring football, drama, beauty, and emotion. But behind the spectacle lies another story – one about power, money, political prestige, and who gets to use sport, and for what purpose.

In this episode, you will hear Jules Boykoff speak about sportswashing, the FIFA 2026 World Cup, and the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Boykoff is a political scientist, author, former professional football player, and one of the most critical voices on the politics of sport and mega-events.

His analysis focuses on the concept of sportswashing: how political leaders, states, and powerful institutions use sport to build prestige, stoke nationalism, and deflect attention from chronic problems at home.

In the case of the 2026 World Cup, Boykoff turns his attention to FIFA, Donald Trump, and the political and commercial machinery surrounding the tournament.

But his argument does not stop with football. Two years after the World Cup, the Olympic Games will come to Los Angeles – raising many of the same questions about power, profit, public money, policing, displacement, and political image-making.

The episode also comes as Boykoff releases his new book, Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine.

Host: Stanis Elsborg, head of Play the Game

Speaker: Jules Boykoff, political scientist, author, and former professional football player

This episode is produced by Play the Game.

Music: I Walk With Ghosts by Scott Buckley.

This story is written by journalist Steve Menary for Play the Game and narrated by Stanis Elsborg.

Is FIFA moving into the betting industry faster than it can protect the integrity of the game?

Ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, football’s global governing body is deepening its relationship with betting operators, prediction markets, data companies, and streaming rights - and, on June 9, FIFA announced Kraken as an official crypto exchange supporter of the tournament.

The result is a rapidly expanding commercial landscape where new betting opportunities are emerging not only around the World Cup itself, but also around low-level matches streamed on FIFA+.

Some of those matches involve amateur or poorly paid players in countries where online gambling is illegal. Yet they can still end up on global betting markets, raising questions about offshore operators, cryptocurrency, weak regulation, and match-fixing risks.

This episode looks at how FIFA’s commercial partnerships are bringing thousands of matches closer to betting markets, why sports integrity experts are concerned about prediction markets ahead of the 2026 World Cup, and whether football’s systems of protection and accountability can keep up.

This is a story about money, governance, betting, and the integrity of football – from the biggest World Cup ever staged to some of the smallest leagues in the game.

Host: Stanis Elsborg, head of Play the Game

Author: Steve Menary, journalist

This episode is produced by Play the Game.

Music: I Walk With Ghosts by Scott Buckley.

“Silence is sport’s worst enemy!”

That is the message from Qatar 2022 whistleblower Abdullah Ibhais, the former media manager for Qatar’s World Cup organising committee, who paid a heavy price for speaking out about the treatment of migrant workers ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

In the opening episode of the Play the Game Podcast, Stanis Elsborg speaks with Ibhais in an exclusive interview about the latest developments in his case.

After travelling to Norway to speak publicly about FIFA, Qatar, and the World Cup, Ibhais says he was stopped at the airport on his return to Jordan, questioned, and had his passport confiscated.

The episode also features Ibhais’ powerful presentation from Play the Game 2025, where he describes Qatar’s media strategy in the years leading up to the tournament — a strategy he sums up as: “Deflect, discredit, and deny.”

This is the story of an insider turned whistleblower – a story about prison, pressure, media control, FIFA, migrant workers, and the global politics behind Qatar 2022.

Host: Stanis Elsborg, head of Play the Game

Guest: Abdullah Ibhais, whistleblower, communications and advocacy consultant, Jordan

*This episode is produced by Play the Game*

Music: I Walk With Ghosts by Scott Buckley

Welcome to the Play the Game Podcast

Play the Game Podcast is a new podcast about the people, powers, and politics shaping sport.

The podcast brings you voices, stories, and debates that rarely get enough space in the world of sport.

For almost three decades, Play the Game has worked to create space for open, critical, and informed dialogue about international sport through conferences, analyses, and journalism.

Now, we are bringing that work to your headphones.

In the podcast, you will hear from investigative journalists, researchers, athletes, whistleblowers, sports leaders, decision-makers, and others who help uncover what is happening behind the scenes of international sport.

Episodes will include interviews, narrated articles, conference presentations, and critical debates on some of the biggest challenges facing sport today — from corruption, match-fixing, doping, and human rights to geopolitics, gambling, sustainability, athlete welfare, and abuse in sport.

Some episodes will give new life to important material from Play the Game’s conferences and website: presentations, articles, and conversations that deserve to travel further than the room where they were first heard. Others will open up new conversations about the questions that sport still struggles to answer.

Play the Game Podcast is for everyone who believes that sport deserves scrutiny, transparency, and open debate.

Subscribe now, and listen soon on all major podcast platforms.

For more information visit www.playthegame.org/podcast