In 2008, at the Summer Olympics in Beijing, the venues and streets were filled with men carrying automatic weapons. The residents near the athletic venues seemed tentative, if not frightened.
My first dinner at the 2016 Olympics in Rio was at a small restaurant off the boardwalk. I took a window seat. About 20 minutes later, a group of men wearing uniforms and brandishing automatic weapons sprinted down the street, pushed into a convenience store and grabbed a young man, who screamed as they dragged him down the block.
On the day my traveling party arrived in Venezuela, the international newspapers ran photos of blood on the streets of Caracas during a nationwide strike. We were warned to stay away from cities.
When Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund started the LIV Golf league, my brief dalliances with authoritarianism, combined with my lifelong interest in the rise in fascism and totalitarianism that led to World War II and the Cold War, caused me to rail against LIV and those willing to join it. Saudi Arabia is known for human rights abuses, and home to most of the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
So what should a sportswriter say about the United States in 2026?
Authoritarian governments love sportswashing — using international events to put a smiling face on their grim realities.
That’s what the United States will try to do this summer with the World Cup.
Eleven U.S. cities are scheduled to play host to World Cup matches this summer.
