Welcome everybody to Soccer 101. My name is Taylor Rockwell, and this week, it's a slightly

large topic.

We're looking at the 2026 World Cup in general.

It's less than four months away.

It's already shaping up to be, I'm going to say, the most complicated tournament FIFA has ever had to manage.

This week on the Total Soccer Show, we talked about some of the present obstacles and issues most commonly or most loudly facing the tournament, including the situation with Iran, ticketing situations, and the like.

Today, we're zooming out and asking a bigger question, how does FIFA actually handle

disruption of this magnitude?

We're going to look at what history tells us about when qualified nations have

pulled out historically and what FIFA has done in response. We're going to look at what's

happened when venues have had to change, at least the one time that has happened in FIFA's

history. And we're going to take another look at the upcoming World Cup to see just how chaotic

it might end up being. Here with me to wade through all of that

for the second time this week is the man himself, the legend himself, never chaotic.

It's Graham Ruthven. Hi, Graham.

Hello, Taylor. Yes, I'm excited to talk about teams that have boycotted World Cups.

Because Scotland, of course, did that for 30 years on moral grounds. It wasn't because

we weren't good enough. It was a protest, of course.

That's very well said and very noble of you all.

You were protesting what exactly?

The lack of iron brew.

I think.

...