FIFA President Gianni Infantino is encouraging people to trust that the organization will straighten out issues that are popping up with players, referees and more trying to enter the U.S. for the World Cup, but John Oliver very much won’t. In fact, he had just three words on Sunday night to respond to that request: “No f–king way!”
In the latest episode of “Last Week Night,” Oliver explained that fans from more than a quarter of the countries competing in the World Cup are struggling to even get in the country, but that it’s not just fans. A player from Iraq, Iran’s whole national team, and a referee from Somalia all faced issues, with the latter two actually having to leave the country. But, when Infantino was pressed on this, he told everyone to “chill” and “relax.”
“When I say to ‘chill,’ I don’t mean to chill and do nothing,” he clarified. “I mean to trust us.”
But that just made Oliver laugh, considering the context of everything happening after FIFA invented a peace prize to give to President Trump.
“When Trump is using the World Cup to as an excuse to punish specific groups of people, telling everyone to ‘chill’ won’t cut it,” Oliver said. “And as for ‘Trust FIFA,’ no f–king way! We have done multiple stories on how terrible they are! I can barely think of a less ethical organization!”
Oliver added that he was definitely including organizations like BP, Theranos, Meta and Boeing in said consideration, and still FIFA topped the list of the worst.
“And it’s especially hard to trust FIFA to stand up to Trump given Infantino’s sucked up to him in so many ways,” Oliver said. “He’s actually made more public appearances in the Oval Office during Trump’s second term than any world political leader.”
The “Last Week Tonight” host went on to list several other ways that FIFA has acted specifically to benefit Trump, including hiring the Village People to perform at the ceremony for said peace prize, and more.
