Coventry faces the most sensitive test of her term: cooperation with Trump without sacrificing the IOC's independence
Ahead of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry faces a task that goes beyond sports organization: building a sufficiently close working relationship with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump while at the same time preserving the political independence of the Olympic movement. The U.S. federal government will have a direct role in security, transportation, visas, border procedures and the entry of a large number of athletes, coaches, officials, media crews and other accredited participants. For that reason, communication between the IOC, the LA28 organizing committee and the White House is not a matter of political choice, but a practical prerequisite for staging the Games. At the same time, the way Coventry manages that cooperation will show how possible it is to work with one of the most politically prominent administrations in the world without creating the impression that the IOC is aligning itself with its agenda. That balance is becoming one of the most important tests of her eight-year term.
Coventry took over as head of the IOC in June 2025, after being elected three months earlier as the organization's tenth president, the first woman and the first African to hold the position, according to official data from the International Olympic Committee. From the very beginning of her term, it was clear that Los Angeles 2028 would be the central political and organizational challenge of her first presidential cycle. The Olympic Games will be held from July 14 to 30, 2028, and the Paralympic Games from August 15 to 27, according to the LA28 organizing committee. Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympic Games for the third time, after 1932 and 1984, and the Paralympic Games for the first time. The scale of the event makes cooperation with federal authorities essential long before the delegations arrive.
The White House has powers that organizers cannot bypass
In August 2025, Trump established a special White House task force for the 2028 Olympic Games by executive order and appointed himself as its chairman, while Vice President JD Vance was named vice chairman. The order explicitly states that the federal task force coordinates security, transportation and processes for entering and leaving the country, as well as visa issuance and accreditation programs for foreign athletes, coaches, officials and media. The group includes the most important federal departments, among them the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation and Department of Justice. This means that the most sensitive parts of Olympic logistics will depend on bodies directly subordinate to the federal executive branch. The LA28 organizing committee remains a privately funded nonprofit organization, but without federal coordination it cannot independently resolve border, security or immigration procedures.
The security dimension further increases Washington's importance. Official White House documents provide for cooperation among federal, state and local agencies in counterterrorism, law enforcement, transportation and emergency operations. Some key decisions will therefore be made at the federal level. The IOC's political distance cannot mean institutional distance from the U.S. government: Coventry must establish a relationship functional enough to solve problems, but without turning Olympic cooperation into a political alliance.
The 2026 World Cup showed where problems can arise
The most concrete warning came during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. Reuters reported in June that problems had emerged with visas and entry into the United States for certain delegation members, as well as football officials. The Iranian national team moved its base from Arizona to Tijuana in Mexico, while some members of its technical and administrative staff were left without U.S. visas. U.S. authorities maintained that the necessary players and key team members had received their documents, but Iranian officials warned of the logistical consequences of cross-border travel. The case showed that a formal exemption for athletes does not automatically eliminate all problems for the broader delegations needed for a major competition to function.
An even more serious precedent was the case of Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan. Reuters reported that in June 2026 he was denied entry to the United States after arriving in Miami, preventing him from officiating at the World Cup even though FIFA had previously appointed him among the tournament officials. U.S. border authorities cited security reasons and stated that decisions on permission to enter are made on an individual basis. FIFA emphasized that it does not decide U.S. immigration procedures. For the IOC, this case is particularly important because it demonstrates the distinction between an issued visa or sports accreditation and the final decision on entry at the border, which is a power of the host state.
Coventry publicly responded to those problems in June 2026. After a meeting of the IOC Executive Board in Lausanne, she said, according to Reuters, that Los Angeles organizers were already working with U.S. authorities to avoid a repeat of the complications seen at the World Cup. She stressed that solutions would require cooperation and learning from the experience of the football tournament. IOC Sports Director Pierre Ducrey explained at the time that LA28 had people specifically responsible for these issues, including a Washington office and efforts to build relationships with the relevant federal agencies. His explanation shows that preparations are not limited to political contacts at the top, but also involve technical work with the bodies that will decide thousands of individual cases in 2028.
Giuliani: the relationship with Trump should be treated as an operational resource
Andrew Giuliani, who as executive director of the White House task force was involved in federal preparations for the 2026 World Cup, believes Coventry should not avoid a direct relationship with Trump. In an interview reported by Inside the Games, Giuliani assessed that FIFA President Gianni Infantino's close relationship with the U.S. president had been important for operational support for the football tournament. His message to Coventry is that the president in the White House should be viewed as a key resource for solving problems that will inevitably arise as Los Angeles 2028 approaches. According to his interpretation, failing to make use of such access would mean giving up the possibility of resolving more quickly issues that depend on the federal administration.
Giuliani's argument is based on the model FIFA used during the World Cup. Infantino cultivated a highly visible public relationship with Trump, while the White House and FIFA cooperated through a special federal task force. But the boundary between necessary institutional cooperation and personal political closeness is sensitive for the head of an organization representing countries with very different relationships with Washington. For the IOC, it is therefore important that operational access to the host country's authorities does not appear to be political alignment.
So far, Coventry has chosen a considerably more measured public style. She has not built a relationship with Trump that resembles Infantino's in visibility, but neither has she signaled that she wants political confrontation. Shortly after her election in 2025, she indicated that she expected talks with the U.S. president and believed that he wanted successful Games in Los Angeles. After the World Cup experience, she shifted the emphasis to the work of institutions, coordination and learning from specific problems. For now, such an approach allows her not to close the door to the White House while also avoiding personalizing the IOC's relationship with the U.S. government more than necessary.
Visas are simultaneously a logistical and political issue
The biggest short-term risk remains participants' entry into the United States. The State Department currently applies restrictions on visa issuance and entry for nationals of a number of countries, with special exemptions for participants in major sporting events. Under official U.S. rules in force in 2026, exemptions may cover athletes, team members, coaches, essential support personnel and immediate family members when traveling for the World Cup, Olympic Games or other major sporting events. This is an important safeguard for the basic functioning of competitions, but it does not automatically resolve the status of everyone accompanying athletes, nor that of fans and other visitors. Final decisions continue to be made in accordance with U.S. immigration and security regulations.
That distinction is also important for the political credibility of the Games. The IOC emphasizes that political tensions should not prevent eligible athletes from participating, but it has no authority over U.S. borders. It cannot guarantee entry to a person whom the competent authorities reject for security or legal reasons. A large part of the work will therefore have to be completed in advance, through early identification of delegations, timely checks and special consular channels.
For Coventry, it is additionally sensitive that the more restrictive visa regime also covers a number of countries from which Olympians, officials and fans come. The issue therefore cannot be reduced to only a few politically prominent national teams. Los Angeles 2028 is expected to bring together practically the entire Olympic world, and the system must function for hundreds of national Olympic committees and thousands of accredited people with different profiles. Any major incident involving the denial of entry to an athlete or official could very quickly become an international political issue. The experience of 2026 showed that such situations are not merely hypothetical.
IOC independence is not the same as avoiding governments
The central problem for Coventry arises from the rules of the Olympic movement themselves. The IOC's ethical framework requires sports organizations to preserve autonomy and political neutrality and to reject political, religious or economic pressures that would prevent them from implementing the Olympic Charter. At the same time, the same framework explicitly encourages constructive relations and partnerships with public authorities when needed to achieve sporting objectives, provided that the autonomy of sports organizations is respected. In other words, Olympic neutrality does not require cutting off contact with governments; it requires that such contacts do not develop into political subordination or alignment.
Los Angeles 2028 is almost a textbook example of that tension. Without the White House and federal agencies, it will not be possible to organize security protocols, accelerate visa processes, coordinate large-scale transportation or manage borders during the arrival of delegations. On the other hand, an excessively close identification of the IOC president with Trump could raise suspicions that the organization favors the political interests of the host country or its president. Such an impression would be particularly problematic during international crises, disputes over the participation of particular countries or controversies regarding human rights. Coventry must therefore maintain a channel of direct communication while simultaneously demonstrating that IOC decisions remain institutional and based on Olympic rules.
It is not enough to have access to the Oval Office; a system must be built in which problems can also be resolved without personal intervention from the president. That requires a combination of talks at the highest level and technical work with departments, consulates, security services and organizers. The more issues are resolved through predefined procedures, the less dependent the IOC will be on ad hoc political agreements. Institutionalized cooperation can therefore also be an important mechanism for protecting Olympic autonomy.
Los Angeles 2028 will be a test of a new leadership model
Coventry took over the IOC at a time when international sports organizations are simultaneously expected to maintain political neutrality, protect athletes and be capable of acting in an increasingly polarized international environment. Los Angeles will make that contradiction exceptionally visible. The U.S. administration has capabilities without which the Games cannot function, while the IOC must protect the universal character of the event and access for participants from countries that may be in political or security disputes with the United States. The 2026 World Cup gave organizers practical lessons about visas, borders and communication with federal institutions, but at the same time showed that even intensive cooperation between FIFA and the White House cannot eliminate every problem.
For that reason, Coventry's success will be difficult to measure by how often she is seen with Trump or how cordial their relationship is. Much more important will be whether she can ensure that the political channel to Washington functions when needed while IOC decisions remain separate from day-to-day politics. If visa and security mechanisms are established sufficiently early and disputed cases are resolved transparently and according to clear rules, cooperation with the White House can remain operational rather than political. If, however, key issues depend on personal relationships and last-minute interventions, the pressure on IOC autonomy will be significantly greater.
Less than two years remain until the opening ceremony on July 14, 2028. During that period, Coventry will have to show whether she can simultaneously be pragmatic toward the host and credible to the rest of the Olympic world. That is precisely where the difference lies between protocol-based cooperation and political rapprochement. For the IOC president, Los Angeles will therefore not be only an organizational project, but also a test of whether the new leadership of the Olympic movement can preserve neutrality at a time when no major international sporting event can be staged without the political institutions of the host country.
Sources:
- Inside the Games – analysis of the relationship between Kirsty Coventry, Donald Trump and the role of Andrew Giuliani in preparations for LA28 (link)
- The White House – executive order establishing the federal task force for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games and defining its powers (link)
- U.S. Department of State – current rules on suspensions and exemptions for participants in major sporting events (link)
- Reuters / Channel NewsAsia – statements by Kirsty Coventry and Pierre Ducrey on World Cup visa problems and preparations for LA28 (link)
- Reuters / Investing.com – the case of Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, who was denied entry to the United States during the 2026 World Cup (link)
- Reuters / Investing.com – visa problems involving the Iranian national team and the relocation of its base to Tijuana during the 2026 World Cup (link)
- International Olympic Committee – official information on Kirsty Coventry's election and the beginning of her term (link)
- International Olympic Committee – ethical principles on autonomy, political neutrality and cooperation with public authorities (link)
- LA28 – official dates of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games (link)