Brand America is in crisis — and the World Cup is caught in the crossfire
British football fans are approaching this summer’s FIFA World Cup with a level of political and cultural discomfort that should alarm everyone with money riding on the tournament — from the organisers to its roster of major corporate sponsors.
New research commissioned by Famous Campaigns, conducted by polling company 3Gem among 2,000 UK adults, finds that nearly half of British adults (49%) say their perception of the United States has worsened over the past five years.
Among those whose view has soured, 56% say it has directly affected how they feel about the World Cup being held there.
The backdrop could hardly be more turbulent.
America is marking its 250th birthday this summer — and the celebrations tell their own story. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been drained and painted blue. The Oval Office gilded in gold leaf.
America’s celebrations centre on a cage fight on the South Lawn of the White House
Away from the pageantry, the numbers are stark. International tourism to America fell by four million visitors in 2025 — a bigger annual drop than during the 2008 financial crisis — even as eighty million more people travelled internationally that year. They simply went elsewhere.
Eighty percent of hotels across all 11 World Cup host cities are reporting bookings well below forecast. European airline bookings into the US for July are down 14% year on year.
The Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index 2026 recorded the United States as suffering the steepest decline in soft power of all 193 nation brands — with China overtaking America for the first time on 19 of 35 measures.
“We used to be a country that others wanted to emulate,” noted Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard Kennedy School. “That narrative no longer exists.”
For the brands and sponsors writing large cheques to attach their names to this tournament, the research carries a specific warning: 56% of British fans say they would be put off buying from a brand that sponsors a World Cup they feel uncomfortable about politically. Three quarters agree that sponsors are implicitly endorsing the host nation’s politics.
The full piece — including the Brand America audit, is on our Substack now.
