Calls for a European-led World Cup boycott have grown louder and louder in recent weeks. Yet the possibility one could happen is “slim to none,” said Alan Rothenberg, a man who knows a little bit about both World Cups and boycotts.
Rothenberg organized the soccer tournament at the 1984 L.A. Games, which was boycotted by 19 countries. Ten years later, he led the organization that put on the 1994 World Cup, the first held in the U.S. and still the best-attended in history.
So while politicians and soccer officials in several key European countries — Germany, France, Denmark and the United Kingdom, among others — have raised the idea of skipping this summer’s World Cup, largely in response to President Trump’s demands that Denmark hand over Greenland, Rothenberg knows that talk is all bluster.