Part II of DeFIFA, a series on sports, policing, & incarceration
It’s time for another entry from DeFIFA, a zine that my friends Cameron Michels, Leslie McCallum and I are working on! In part I, we talked about the history of intersections between sports and the prison-industrial complex, and the ways that stadiums worldwide have been used for detention and surveillance. Unfortunately, this is true in Seattle as well, where a huge carceral apparatus has been built up around this year’s Men’s World Cup (MWC) – which is our topic for today.
Please make sure to stick with this post until the end, where we offer some free and easy ways to act against the harms caused by the MWC. If you already took these actions last time, there’s a new petition that we’d love you to sign: the City of Everett recently rushed a bill through that gives law enforcement the authority for warrantless raids of massage parlors – which are predominantly staffed with Asian-American workers. Regardless of where you live, you can sign this petition demanding they suspend this racist law.
And thanks to artists at Protect Our Pitch 206 for providing free protest artwork!
Seattle’s municipal government is spending $32 million on the MWC, with almost half of that coming from City funds, and the rest from state and federal grants. Over $15 million is designated for security purposes, primarily to the Seattle Police and Fire Departments (SPD and SFD) for training, overtime, and equipment. But it’s not just those two departments involved: over fifty agencies are working on security, including not only local departments, but also Washington’s Military Department; federal agencies like the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, and ICE; the US Coast Guard; and more. SPD also paid more than $100,000 to fascist billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet company for five months of service leading up to and during the MWC.
All of this results in an enormous increase in law enforcement across the city during the months of June and July 2026. More than 450 SPD officers, both uniformed and undercover, are being deployed across Seattle, including at four official FIFA fan celebrations downtown. Meanwhile, the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) has more than 200 deputies on patrol – about half in the “FIFA Core Service Area” (near the stadium, and the other half on buses, trains, and light rail.
It gets weirder from there. SPD has a motorcycle unit acting as escorts for soccer teams, and they’ve recruited extra officers from Lynnwood and even Kennewick (220 miles away) to run it. The US Coast Guard is escorting ferries and cruise ships in and out of Elliott Bay. For some reason, the City of Spokane (280 miles away) received a $726,158 grant to send officers to Seattle, including an explosives disposal unit and a helicopter. Air travel may even be restricted on game days. And over $100,000 is being spent on new surveillance across the city, including the installation of 22 new CCTV cameras in Pioneer Square and Stadium District, which Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson recently confirmed are being used during the MWC, in addition to more than 100 traffic cameras that the City regularly uses to monitor people during large events. And that doesn’t even cover the drones – but we’ll talk more about that in a future post.
And the kicker? The person coordinating all of this work, the Chief Security Officer for the city’s World Cup committee, is John Diaz, the Chief of Police in Seattle from 2010 to 2013, who infamously was in charge of SPD in 2010 when a cop in Seattle shot and killed Deaf Indigenous woodcarver John T. Williams, simply because Williams was walking in front of the cop’s car while carrying a small pocketknife.
This wasn’t just one “bad apple” cop going rogue (it never is): protest from the local community led to the US Department of Justice getting involved, and they determined that SPD had a pattern and practice of excessive force and racially biased policing. This led to a 2012 consent decree and federal supervision that lasted until 2025. Yet Diaz’s past as the leader of a racist police force has not limited him from positions of power like his more recent stint overseeing juvenile detention in King County – nor from this role with the MWC.
Next time, we’ll talk about the history of colonialism, racism, and misogyny in the areas around the stadium where the MWC is being played in Seattle – and how the MWC exacerbates these injustices. Until then, please take action at the links below if you can!
What You Can Do
Actions to Take
Organizations to Follow and Support
If we missed other organizations or collectives that are organizing and providing community care around the MWC in Seattle, email me at sivarajan [dot] deepa [at] gmail [com] and we’ll add them to the online version of this zine!
