While soccer is the most popular sport globally, it wasn’t high on the list in Ron Krabill’s home state of Indiana. As a high schooler, Krabill’s soccer team often had to travel an hour and a half to find the nearest school with a team. Krabill still became a lifelong fan.

Now a professor in UW Bothell’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and director of the Global Sport Lab in the UW Jackson School of International Studies, Krabill never imagined soccer would become part of his academic work until he found himself conducting research in South Africa in 2010 when the country hosted the World Cup. He’s been intertwining sport and academics ever since.

With Seattle scheduled to host World Cup games from June 15 to July 6, Krabill is gearing up to co-lead this year’s UW Summer Institute in the Arts & Humanities with , UW teaching professor of communication, and , doctoral student in the UW Jackson School of International Studies. This year’s theme, Seattle’s World Cup: Storytelling Through Community Mapping, will combine community mapping with other methodologies, including photo and video essays and journalistic reporting, to tell stories about Seattle’s experience with the World Cup.��

The mapping technology was developed by , associate professor of Urban Studies at UW Tacoma. Kelley is the director of the Action Mapping Project, which works to engage issues of livability, equity, and voice in marginalized neighborhoods through the use of participatory data collection, spatial data analysis, mapping and data visualization.

UW News talked with Krabill about his plans for participating students, his background in sports scholarship, what he’ll be watching during Seattle’s tournament games and more.

When did your love of soccer and your academic work first intersect and how have you continued that work?

Ron Krabill: I lived and worked in South Africa on and off between 1996 and 2010 doing research on South African media, the late Apartheid Era and the media’s impact on anti-Apartheid politics. And then South Africa hosted the World Cup. I had been to two Women’s World Cups, but never before to a Men’s World Cup and I thought, “I can’t be in South Africa when this happens and not go.” It just felt too big and too important. It was a momentous thing for South Africa as a nation.��

A lot of debates were happening from the time South Africa was awarded the World Cup about whether it was going to be a good thing or a bad thing and what it meant. My academic work was concerned with a state putting a lot of money into feel-good projects when�� it’s struggling to provide basic resources for its people. I around 2010 for Social Text, which is an academic journal that covers a wide range of social and cultural phenomena. The piece talked about the challenge for people who love soccer but also see all the problems with soccer, mega-events, the industry, and so on. In that piece, I also talked about loving South Africa, being deeply connected to South Africa and worrying about what the impact of the World Cup would be.

In 2010, I helped lead a UW study abroad program called My World Cup, which was funded in part by the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the UW, the Seattle Sounders and Cape Town Community Television. We paired our UW students with University of Cape Town film students and media activists from the Media Workers Alliance to put together short segments on the impact of the World Cup locally. We then aired those during the World Cup on Cape Town Community Television.��

After that, the UW León Center in Spain approached me and I proposed a class about the politics of soccer in Spain and beyond that addresses questions of gender, race, nationalism and migration. For this year’s World Cup, I wanted to create an immersive course much like the study abroad program — something that students can really sink their teeth into.

How will your students study the World Cup and Seattle as a host city?

RK: developed the Action Mapping Project, a community mapping tool that we’re excited to use in the World Cup context. This tool will allow us to do both large and geographical analysis alongside more qualitative and traditional arts and humanities methods. We’ll be asking people outside the stadium, at fan zones and at watch parties to reflect on what stories Seattle tells about itself. How do their experiences in Seattle during the Cup — whether they’re from the area, elsewhere in the United States or an international visitor — relate to what they imagine Seattle to be? In other words, does their experience of World Cup Seattle match their expectations?

The first two weeks are going to be very intense. The games are only in town for three weeks and unfortunately, the first of those weeks is the break in between academic terms. So those first weeks, we’ll be introducing students to critical sport studies as a field and what it means to think about sports as a site of power and politics, at the same time as training them in research methods and fieldwork.��

Hopefully we’ll gather a lot of material to work with, and then we’ll have the rest of the summer to figure out what to do with it. The students will be working in collaborative research teams, looking at different angles of what it means for Seattle to host. They’ll work off whatever material they find really compelling.��

It will be tricky, because they’ll have to collect the data before they’ve decided exactly what they’re going to do with it. They won’t have had the theoretical background to really think about the meaning. That means the teaching team is going to have to be a little more direct about what kinds of research gathering we do on our field days. The first two weeks, we’ll have four pretty long field work days with students. We’re expecting to send teams of students out into different parts of the city and the region to see what the World Cup experience is like.

What are you most interested to observe in Seattle during those three weeks?��

RK: When South Africa hosted the World Cup in 2010, the vibe was incredible. It’s not really clear how much Seattle is going to embrace that vibe. Is the whole city going to be all about the World Cup? Because it was definitely like that in Cape Town. The Women’s World Cup in Paris wasn’t like that. You could have easily been in Paris and not had any idea what was going on. I don’t know where Seattle will land. There have also been a lot of stories about the hotel industry downgrading their expectations. The thing about the economic impact is that it’s often named as one big number, but it’s not always very clear where that money’s going and if it’s staying in the city.

People like to say that we should keep politics out of sports. But when we start talking about where the money is going to flow to, who’s going to be able to afford games,�� or the pressures FIFA and the federal government is putting on local organizing committees, it’s not as hard for people to understand. We should be thinking about: What are the implications of this, and what are the actions that people can take to make it as beneficial as possible for the city and for the people who live in the city? How do you mitigate against the potential harms, and how do you take advantage of the potential benefits?

There is also a lot of evidence that the fan base is going to be more domestic and less international than expected from a World Cup, particularly because President Donald Trump’s stance on immigration will discourage a lot of people from traveling. I do think that’s going to impact Seattle more than most places because of our proximity to Canada. I think we would have had a lot of visitors, both from Canada and from other countries, because they could have gone to Vancouver and Seattle to see matches in both countries.

I’m also super interested in what the will look like. The local organizing committee is super committed to having it. The Seattle committee is also taking really seriously their responsibility to think about what it means to have the U.S. play on Juneteenth. That’s an opportunity to educate a worldwide audience about what Juneteenth is and why it’s necessary as a holiday.��

I’m following very closely, too. And not just because they’re coming to Seattle. I’m looking at what it means for modern society that two nations can be at war, and yet there is an expectation that one of them will travel to play in the other’s country in a tournament. The idea that that’s even a conversation says something about how detached we are in the United States from the idea of warfare.��

For more information, contact Krabill at rkrabill@uw.edu or globalsportlab@uw.edu.

grew up in the United Kingdom surrounded by soccer. He’s always loved sport, but his academic focus — he’s a ����ԭ�� master’s student in South Asian Studies researching the history of memory in diaspora communities — is far removed from the playing field.

But Josan brought his passion for sport, particularly soccer — known as football to most of the world — with him to the United States. When packing for the move, he even found room in his suitcase for a prized soccer jersey he received as a Christmas present when he was 13. When Josan arrived at the UW, he started searching for ways to engage in sport scholarship.

“My interest comes from how sport creates identity and how much of our cultural connection comes from sport,” Josan said. “That obviously has good parts, but it also means sport becomes very politically loaded. We see both in the wider scale kind of conversations about sports and politics today.”

Josan found a way to nurture his combined interests when he took a course with , professor in UW Bothell’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and director of the in the Jackson School of International Studies. The two developed a relationship, which led Krabill to ask Josan to serve as the managing editor for a new website: .

Whether people are counting the days until the — games will be played in Seattle from June 19 through July 6 — or wondering what all the hype is about, the Global Sport Lab’s syllabus was created as a way for anyone to learn more about the history and politics of the tournament.

“Pavandeep is an incredibly talented, thoughtful guy,” said Krabill, who also served as the editor for the syllabus. “There is no way the project would have happened without him.”

The idea for the syllabus emerged from the creation of similar resources for social movements and newsworthy events. There is a Black Lives Matter syllabus, for example. And during the protests that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, after Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer in 2014, a Georgetown University professor launched the.

“What those syllabi did really well was put current events into larger historical, cultural and political contexts,” Krabill said. “The idea was to do the same thing with the World Cup — imagining someone who is really interested in the politics and controversies around this event and wants to dig deeper and find more analysis.”

World Cup: The Syllabus is divided into seven sections: FIFA; migrations; protest and resistance; arts and culture; human rights; stadiums; and technology. Each page offers analysis written by experts, discussion questions and a suggested reading list.��

The website was curated by an editorial team of six leading experts in global football, including Krabill. Krabill and Josan had multiple, hours-long meetings with the other five academics, many of whom have sat on FIFA panels and produced some of the most widely read resources on global soccer.

“I’ve read a lot of what these experts have produced in the past, and I never thought I’d be chairing meetings with them,” Josan said. “It’s sometimes a bit surreal when you work with people that you’ve read before. It was exciting learning about their insights, not just from what they’ve studied and their research, but also from their lived experiences. That was fascinating to me.”

Krabill wrote the syllabus’ introduction, and , a UW student in visual communication design, designed the site.“There is no right or wrong way to engage with the syllabus, and we want people to engage however they see fit,” Josan said. “If there’s a particular category that speaks most to you, start with that one.”

The website is also structured to help guide readers who don’t have a preference or don’t know where to begin. In these cases, Josan recommends starting with the first section, which focuses broadly on FIFA. From there, the topics narrow down. The syllabus isn’t specific to this summer’s World Cup, either. The hope is for the resource to remain relevant for future events, including for the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil.

“The Women’s World Cup has been gaining a lot of prominence, a lot of popularity,” Josan said. “Attendance numbers are higher than they’ve ever been for women’s sport across the board, and specifically for women’s football. So, we’re hoping this project doesn’t stop when the 2026 final is played. It’s something that will continue to be updated.”

Even people with no interest in soccer can find something in the syllabus worth exploring, Josan said.

“The syllabus is designed to cross the boundary between football and other topics that are of interest to our society,” he said. “I’d encourage anyone to engage with this, especially if you live in an area that’s going to host a World Cup game. There is going to be so much that you’ll learn, and you might be able to connect the dots when you see things play out in our local area.”

For more information, contact Lauren Kirschman at lkirsc@uw.edu.

As the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup inches closer, ’s schedule keeps getting busier.

“If I’m not teaching, I’m on a call dealing with the World Cup,” Ramasastry said.

Ramasastry, a professor of law at the ����ԭ��, is an expert in the convergence of business and human rights — a field she helped create. She was also an advisor to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the group that established standards to help governments regulate companies while also providing guidelines for�� those companies to navigate global human rights issues.

Her expertise led to work with , which launched a stronger commitment to human rights after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. included its reliance on migrant workers to build stadiums, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights. As a large global sporting body bigger than most multinational corporations, FIFA accepted that, like those companies, it has corresponding human rights commitments.

In the wake of that tournament, Ramasastry was asked to join FIFA’s human rights subcommittee as its independent human rights advisor. The committee commissioned on Qatar, which found that many migrants were uncompensated for their work, and others died or suffered injuries.��

As a result, the 2026 World Cup marks the first time each host bid had to include a human rights component, including the United Bid submitted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.��

Once that bid was accepted, cities also had to vie to host matches. Ramasastry drafted the human rights action plan for Seattle. Because of her global and local expertise, she’s also chairing the human rights expert advisory group for FIFA 2026, headquartered in Miami. She worked on the 2026 World Cup’s human rights framework, which served as a baseline for cities to create their plans.

UW News caught up with Ramasastry to talk about the World Cup and human rights, Seattle’s action plan and more.

What is a human rights action plan and what potential issues do they address?

Anita Ramasastry: For every city that’s going to host the tournament, in every country, there are going to be human rights impacts. How do you identify harms and risks to unhoused people that are connected to the tournament? How do you ensure that people have the right to assemble and protest? Are workers being fairly paid?��

There are all kinds of issues that arise that are connected to these sporting events. In different countries, there are different issues. Qatar had issues with migrant labor. In Russia, it was LGBTQ+ rights and discrimination. The controversy around Qatar happened after the bid was already awarded. The world tuned into what was happening there and started thinking about human rights.��

The point of having a human rights action plan is that you anticipate the harms that arise from the tournament and you try to mitigate them. It’s been a bumpy ride because the issues we’re now dealing with are not the issues we originally thought we were going to be dealing with. Immigration issues are very different now. The issue of protests and counterprotests weren’t necessarily top of the list before, but they are now very much an issue for cities.��

FIFA and the host cities also have a commitment to what we call “access to remedy.” If someone is harmed, there should be a way for them to be provided with relief and remediation. FIFA is going to have a grievance portal where people will be able to raise an issue and then FIFA is going to screen it.��

This is the largest and most decentralized World Cup ever. FIFA says its role is to protect human rights in the stadium and to protect the human rights of athletes and workers in the stadium. It’s the cities’ job to deal with fan festivals or other events happening outside the FIFA zone. This has been a challenge because the cities don’t get extra money to deal with this. My job is to say we want to protect people — the fans, the workers, the communities — that may get impacted.

What issues are most pressing for Seattle and how did you identify them?

AR: For the Seattle bid, I consulted local stakeholders and they identified what they saw as the top salient risks. The main topics were human trafficking, issues related to unhoused populations, the right to protest, workers’ rights and discrimination against certain communities.��

Now one of the biggest issues — and it’s challenging to address — is the rights of immigrant communities. We at the UW hosted a roundtable on safeguarding immigrant communities. We’re also working on a peaceful assembly toolkit about the rights of protestors — how they can ensure they’re doing things peacefully and lawfully.

Part of the idea is that the practices and protocols that are created for Seattle now can be used in the future. I’d love for Seattle to have good ways of dealing with things. When the MLB All-Star Game came to Seattle in 2023, there were . Those are exactly the issues we don’t want to have happen. If there’s a protest, we don’t want people to be harmed. We want to allow dissent in a proper way. It’s really about the legacy of: Are there mechanisms in place to address issues or, if there is harm, to resolve complaints in a way that helps people?

Can you elaborate on past issues that led to this being the first World Cup to require human rights to be part of the bidding process?

AR: I think it’s a combination of several things. One is that there were the human rights standards that arose out of the United Nations. , a former Harvard professor, helped draft those. And he had such authority that he was then able to go to FIFA and advise on embedding human rights into its operations. FIFA was amenable to changing its governance standards, not only because it was called out because of questions about Qatar, but because it had been implicated. There were and a whole investigation by the Department of Justice. And so with FIFA being ensnared in the bribery and corruption charges, it was open to these other reforms. It was kind of a confluence of events.

At the same time, there was similar pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to do the same thing, so now the IOC also has its own commitment to human rights. It does work with host governments and they have ways in which human rights plans are mobilized. With the expertise we’ve developed at the UW, I’m going to keep moving forward with our students. The Women’s World Cup may be coming to the U.S. in 2031 and the Olympics are in Los Angeles in 2028. Those are other opportunities to ensure safe events.

Speaking of your students, how do they engage with this work?

AR: I just taught a seminar this winter on human rights and the World Cup, so they were able to trace the journey from Qatar all the way to Seattle and beyond. We had people speaking about the World Cup, the LA Olympics and what it means to think about the World Cup going to Saudi Arabia in 2034, which is its own kind of interesting issue. Every week, students were able to meet with insiders — either in-person or virtually. The human rights officer from FIFA Zurich talked to them, as did the leader of the Dignity 2026 Coalition, which is a network of labor and human rights organizations uniting to protect groups who are at risk of adverse effects from the World Cup. Other speakers included former Olympic soccer gold medalist , who is the CEO of the Centre for Sport and Human Rights who worked on the United Bid, and , who graduated from the UW School of Law. She is the COO of the Seattle Reign and chaired the bid committee for Seattle. She now serves on the board of the Seattle 2026 Local Organizing Committee.

Students who want to do applied work helped write the Seattle bid. They were in the room for the roundtables we convened on immigration and peaceful protest, taking notes and writing summaries. My students have met with people who have dedicated their careers to human rights. For many of us, it’s about the people, right? No matter how much money is made, at the end of the day it should be made in a harm-free manner.

For more information, contact Lauren Kirschman at lkirsc@uw.edu.

Hear more from Anita Ramasastry

Anita Ramasastry will moderate “Workers’ Rights in Seattle during the World Cup,” a discussion with King County councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, on May 4 from 5-6:00 p.m.

The discussion is part of an ongoing speaker series from the UW Global Sport Lab where experts discuss the geopolitical, local and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. These sessions are free and open to all via livestream. Registration is required. Please follow to RSVP.