In 2018, when it was announced that the United States would co-host the 2026 World Cup, a little-known political activist named Zohran Mamdani began rhapsodizing so incessantly about going to “as many games as possible,” his friends teased him for his obsession.
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Eight years — and a few political steps — later, that rec-league-playing, ticket-hoarding soccer obsessive is not only planning to attend matches. He is leading the city that will (basically) host the World Cup Final.
The world’s most-viewed sporting event represents a test of Mamdani’s leadership and political acumen — especially considering it lands in the middle of a New York Knicks championship run that has gripped the city. More than 1.2 million people are expected to pass through the New York area for the World Cup, including for the final in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey, creating a host of safety and logistical challenges for a liberal mayor still in his first year.
And for many, especially those closely linked to Mamdani’s left-leaning politics, it is impossible to separate the World Cup from President Donald Trump’s role in organizing the event and the unaffordability of the FIFA-hosted tournament.
Mamdani is well aware of that balancing act, and his administration has taken steps to address some of the concerns. But in an interview with The Washington Post, it was clear that the mayor is able to compartmentalize his political and societal concerns from his decades-old, unshakable soccer fandom.
“It’s hard to put into words,” Mamdani said, days before the tournament, of his excitement for this moment. “I was thinking about this World Cup as a fan since it was announced. … It’s an incredible opportunity, both for our city and even just individually. It’s hard to sometimes catch up to reality.”
The World Cup can make a fan of almost anyone. But Mamdani is a year-round superfan. When he was running for mayor, he used a video showing him flicking and kicking a ball to launch a campaign demanding that FIFA keep World Cup ticket prices low. He’s a regular at Brooklyn’s very-Brooklyn Arsenal bar, and last month, days after Arsenal won the Premier League and as the Champions League Final loomed, he attended an Eid al-Adha celebration in the Bronx wearing a kurta modeled after the club’s away kit. When he announced that the city would close streets in front of 50 local schools to create outdoor soccer fields for kids to play on, Mamdani, again in an Arsenal kit, showed off some of his footwork.
“I’ve kind of been hopelessly in love from the beginning,” Mamdani said of his commitment to soccer.
Born in Uganda and raised in Africa until he was 7, Mamdani said he fell in love with soccer both by cheering for Africa’s powerhouse nations to win the World Cup and by playing himself. He played youth soccer on the Upper West Side and in Morningside Heights; captained his team at Bronx High School of Science; and spent his early adulthood playing in city rec leagues. He credits the sport with helping him “discover the breadth and the beauty of the city.”
But it was when his father allowed him to be late for school “for the first and only time in my life,” to watch Senegal play France at the start of the 2002 World Cup, that he realized the power of the tournament.
“His belief in academic rigor was trumped by his belief in Pan-Africanism,” Mamdani said of his father, a Ugandan academic. Senegal’s Papa Bouba Diop would seal the upset win with a tap-in, locking Mamdani into cheering for both the United States and every African nation at World Cups to come.
Uganda has never qualified for the tournament, much to Mamdani’s chagrin. His first World Cup love was the powerful Senegalese teams of the 2000s.
“I probably still have my fake El Hadji Diouf jersey that my dad got for me from ‘02,” he said. And because his father gave him the middle name Kwame — after Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana — the would-be mayor also cheered for Ghana’s national team, the Black Stars, which he saw play in person at the first and only World Cup he attended, in South Africa in 2010.
“I watched Ghana play Uruguay in the quarterfinals and saw Luis Suarez illegally stop the goal-bound shot,” said Mamdani, still bitter. “It was the first time I cried in a soccer stadium.”
After attending college in Maine, Mamdani returned to New York and began getting involved in the city’s extensive network of rec leagues. It was in the summer of 2021 when Mamdani, then a member of the New York Assembly from Queens, was randomly assigned to join the Talking Headers.
“In full transparency, we were very bad when we first started playing,” said Patrick Kargol, a 33-year-old who lives in Queens and was on the team when Mamdani joined.
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Mamdani, Kargol remembered, helped turn the team around.
“He just has this warm personality that was bringing out the best in others,” Kargol recalled, describing the would-be mayor as a “defensive midfielder” who was “really good with his feet and liked to run forward” but was “definitely a very big vibes guy.”
Rec soccer was also how Mamdani deepened his ties to Maya Handa, the campaign manager in his 2025 mayoral general-election campaign and now his World Cup czar. The league the group played in was co-ed, and the Talking Headers needed another woman, so Mamdani asked Handa to sub in.
“He played with a lot of heart,” Handa said. “He was great. Good energy and exactly kind of what rec soccer was about.”
That assessment mimicked how many New Yorkers consumed Mamdani’s 2025 campaign, which ran on an even mix of liberal ideas and strong vibes, putting the mayor’s personality and love for New York on full display through an almost ubiquitous presence on social media, radio and television.
Although he no longer plays in the league — “I miss playing,” he said — Mamdani was notably less charitable about his own soccer skills. When asked what professional footballer, past or present, he would most compare his game to, the mayor went with a deep, if not surprising, cut.
“Nicklas Bendtner,” he said, referring to the large Danish striker who played for Arsenal on and off for nearly a decade in the 2000s and early 2010s. “Incredible self-belief, a little more limited in outcome. And, you know, big Arsenal fan.”
For some of Mamdani’s supporters, the World Cup in the United States is the embodiment of everything they despise about this political moment. Trump has been central to its planning and promotion, injecting the tournament and FIFA with the Republican leader’s brand of bravado. Ticket prices are sky high, leading some to question whether it is hypocritical to support the World Cup at a moment when affordability is a major political issue. FIFA’s history of corruption and the “peace prize” it bestowed on Trump are hard for some to ignore, too.
“I never thought I’d get as close to Salt Bae, but here we are,” Mamdani quipped about his attendance at FIFA events, invoking the Turkish chef and online personality who has come to define some of the organizing body’s opulence.
His administration worked with FIFA to stop the group from charging people to attend the large sponsored gatherings in the city known as Fan Fests. They also secured 1,000 $50 tickets to World Cup matches exclusively for New York City residents.
Asked how he squares his political beliefs with this moment, Mamdani said he does so by ensuring “that you’re always working back from a place of, ‘How can I ensure we deliver the most affordable, most incredible experience for New Yorkers and those who come to visit the city?’ That’s been our compass.”
Mamdani doesn’t know whether he will watch a soccer match with Trump, who is expected to attend some. It is a tradition for the leader of the host nation to be involved in the final, which will happen in Mamdani’s backyard. New Yorkers booed Trump thunderously during his recent appearance at the NBA Finals.
Still, even after being presented with the political and economic foibles of this moment, Mamdani would not let the seedier vibes of the World Cup dampen his excitement, recalling how soccer has been central to the way he understands the world.
“Soccer is another language where you can both unlock yourself and others around you,” Mamdani said. “And it’s an incredible way to engage with a world that we too often see through a very different lens.”
He added: “I’m just so excited for people to fall in love with the game across our city. And my hope is that this is also a summer where young kids across our cities start to think of themselves as soccer players and start to imagine what their life could look like with the ball at the heart of it. And that decades from now, when we look back at an incredible American team, we see the seeds of that team in this year.”
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