Opinion — The World Cup is coming to Atlanta. How will the city prioritize its most vulnerable?

When the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup kicks off on June 11, eight of its games will take place in Atlanta. Running through July 19, the event is expected to bring tens of thousands of tourists and between $500 million to $1 billion in economic impact to the region. This influx of visitors and capital is likely to benefit a portion of Atlantans, but leave the most vulnerable behind.

Rarely do large events like the World Cup benefit the poor and working class in host cities. Prior to last year’s Super Bowl, New Orleans bused over a hundred unhoused individuals, under threat of arrest, to poorly heated warehouses on the outskirts of town. In 2024, Paris forcibly moved thousands of residents in the lead up to the Olympic games. Political elites view large events as marketing opportunities to present their curated vision of a city, while making clear who is deemed undesirable to that vision.

Atlanta has an opportunity to reject “sportwashing,” the use of sport to launder harmful policy and human rights abuses. Rather than papering over many of the city’s underlying issues to profit from short-term international attention, city leaders should embrace the working-class people who have made soccer a global game.

Atlanta’s mega-event history

Atlanta’s political elite have for decades made decisions about who will benefit from investment in the city. These decisions have left far too many behind. Mega-events serve as microcosms of this investment conflict: these events have allowed the wealthy and well-connected to profit, leaving structural conditions unchanged and allowing inequality to balloon.

In 1996, Atlanta hosted the Centennial Olympic Games. In preparation for the competition, the city built the Atlanta City Detention Center (ACDC), a jail with the capacity to hold over 1,000 people. The city sought to rid itself of any association with poverty and homelessness, passing ordinances effectively criminalizing both. Thousands were arrested in the run-up to the event and many were detained inside ACDC or bused away from the city with one way tickets.

Today, the Downtown Rising initiative uses the same rushed approach to remove signs of poverty, despite posing as more humane. This initiative seeks to house 400 people in order to “eliminate homelessness” downtown prior to the World Cup. However, housing advocates have expressed concerns not only about the timeline but also the number of available units. Skepticism is warranted, as the program is being spearheaded by many of the same organizations responsible for inhumane encampment sweeps, one of which led to the death of Cornelius Taylor.

Behind these hurried housing initiatives lies the ever-present threat of law enforcement. For those who do not wish to leave or are simply unlucky enough to still be unhoused after available housing dries up, the police will be ready and waiting to remove them, as in 1996. In order to do so, the city is hiring more police officers, despite crime rates being at historic lows. The result is tremendous opportunity cost, as various social services remain starved for funds.

What is Atlanta’s path forward?

FIFA, not a local organizing committee, will be running the 2026 World Cup and pocketing most of its proceeds. The organization has no clear commitment to ensuring the World Cup benefits people in host cities; their rhetoric around human rights amounts to nothing more than public relations propaganda. 

Despite FIFA implementing its “Human Rights Policy” in 2017, Human Rights Watch found widespread rights violations before and during World Cup events in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022. With the invention of the FIFA Peace Prize, awarded to President Trump on December 5th, 2025, it is clear that FIFA cares more about their proximity to power than human rights.

Atlanta’s FIFA-mandated human rights action plan remains behind schedule and its public input process has left much to be desired. It is clear we cannot rely on FIFA, politicians or corporate sponsors to center the needs of Atlanta’s working class and poor.

Play Fair ATL, a coalition of civil rights and justice-oriented organizations of which we are both contributors, has launched a policy platform to fill this void. The coalition hopes to offer collaboration and guidance on short and long-term issues such as immigration, policing, housing and labor. 

As members of Play Fair ATL, we urge city leaders to deprioritize arrests for low-level offenses both during and after the World Cup, while also working to terminate Fulton County’s use of the Atlanta City Detention Center. We seek explicit worker and immigrant protections, as well as dedicated spending of excess revenues towards housing initiatives.

Atlanta’s elected officials should also push future partners of large events who look to profit off of our city, like FIFA, to make concrete social service investments. This could include a one-time donation to an existing non-profit, the establishment of a trust or binding community benefits agreement to help address issues such as food or housing insecurity. Such funding could also be used to expand free and low-cost fares for MARTA or to build and expand bike and pedestrian infrastructure throughout the city.

As a potential model, LA’s tournament planners announced they would use their 2026 World Cup windfall to fund 26 nonprofits prioritizing youth wellness, job development and other underserved community ventures. Corporate sponsors, salivating at the exposure and profit the World Cup brings, should do the same.

While these initiatives can alleviate some immediate needs, ultimately, it will fall on policymakers to reshape infrastructure and institutions in ways conducive to the well-being of all. It is not one-off donations, but the redistribution of power, that stands between our current reality and a more just future.

With council elections recently completed and debates around Atlanta’s 2026-2027 budget already beginning, now is a crucial time for the public to push the city to turn its rhetoric into concrete policy. There is a need to not only ensure Atlanta ceases harmful practices of displacement and hyper-criminalization, but also to offer a positive vision of what Atlanta could do with mega-events.

The World Cup, despite its magnetic force, will come and go. We can’t stand by and watch the excitement around the largest World Cup to date be used as cover for more wealth and power to flow to those at the top. Rather, we must strive for policies that ensure the maximum benefits go to the most vulnerable and marginalized in Atlanta. Those on the losing end of Atlanta’sinequality have had no input into the decisions surrounding the World Cup. However, it is their lives that stand to be impacted most by the tournament’s legacy. Let us collectively ensure that is for the better.