Infantino clearly wants to see FIFA making billions so he and many others can pocket millions legally. But the only way for this to happen in a non-corrupt way, given that FIFA is non-profit and therefore requires a lot of questionable operations, is to turn FIFA into a business like NFL / MLS.
The problem with that is that it then it is no longer a sport, rather a... business.
CONCACAF join UEFA and reject FIFA's World Cup sell-off plan. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49488584/uefa-boycott... . By the end of this Gianni Infantino will only be left with the Africans .I am African and these Federations will do anything to keep him around because of the unprecedented amounts of corruption...
I actually think the CONCACAF statement shows that they could be on board… they’re just mad they weren’t consulted. Give them the cut they want and they might change their tune.
This statement is weak and wishy-washy compared to the blunt UEFA statement. Kudos to Europe. Here’s hoping CONCACAF can get brave enough to take the moral stance as well.
Yeah, they just rejected the proposal. Meanwhile, UEFA is boycotting the game until those plans are DEFINITELY abandoned. I am wondering whether UEFA could even ask for a change in FIFA statute to ensure it can never be proposed again.
FTA: "As a result of today’s discussion, no UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership." (emphasis mine)
Americans (Kushner et al.) looked at an opportunity to make money and found a willing ally in Infantino, and they took it.
I am Asian. Our country FA is corrupt as hell too. The way I read this, FIFA needs a yes from roughly half of the member nations to go forward with this. Yes to a offer (not promise) to receive $20m. I can totaly see the top brass of our FA, 10-20 people at most, looking at this as an opportunity to earn easy several million bucks and voting yes.
My own frustration isn't corruption per se, a state cannot exist without it - at least not for long, but how cheap African corruption is in general. Others may require considerable resources and billions perhaps. Not here. Just a few Land Rover discoverys for key officials and a scholarship for their kids in Europe is all that is required to sell a whole state. To say nothing of a sporting organization.
That’s not Africa only. When a corruption scandal comes up (bribing, lobbying), I’m often surprised at how cheap it was to buy the official. It’s often in the 10–50k eur region.
Sure but keep in mind that for a lot of countries soccer isn't that big of a deal. There are a lot of countries in fifa and they all have equal voting power.
Some island in the Caribbean has equal say compared to Spain for example.
That's why it's so easy. Bribe the people in the countries where the people don't care about soccer.
the crypto hater mantra from day one was "this is just for drugs, bribery and money laundering". the only word I object to in that statement is "just".
I assume the politicians are kept in a very carefully managed microcosm so that they actually think they're making the best choices for their nation, because all other options have been hidden from them or misrepresented.
It's not cheap to them. You have to adjust for purchasing power - the US dollar goes a lot farther in most African countries than it does in the US. That Land Rover, if sold on the open market, could yield enough for a Nigerian live the rest of their life in Lagos without having to work. An equivalent-purchasing-power bribe in the US would be on the order of several million USD.
I think that's not capitalism, that's human nature. On every possible power structure you can think of, there will be people available to compromise on their moral principles if given the right incentives to do so. Under capitalism that's easily money, under other systems it might be something else. You can work to mitigate or detect and deter it (the amount of effort put on that is what makes the difference between limited and widespread corruption). You cannot hope to eliminate it entirely.
I am not sure a replacement for Infantino is enough. It seems like FIFA has a culture of corruption and Infantino is merely the latest manifestation of said culture. Some serious reform and restructuring seem needed.
Fifa is a reflection of the world. All members (nations) get a vote. Most countries are corrupt. Thank go there is still a bastion of democracy/fairness left in Uefa.
> Thank go there is still a bastion of democracy/fairness left in Uefa
Do you know who Platini is?
This is only because Europe cares about soccer. If this was basketball, ice hockey or baseball then I don't think Europe would care and would be the country to bribe
The FIA (motorsport governing body) is giving them a run for their money. Recently removed presidency term limits and made several other rule changes to prevent challengers. And like FIFA, despite the majority opinion seeming to be against the corruption the decisions get rubber stamped anyway.
The world is a reflection of the laws of physics. When complex self propagating systems coexist in an environment with limited material competition arises, and corruption is simply one inevitable result of that.
I am all in favor of a global revolution to overthrow capitalism with a solidarity of workers of the world. But I think we can have a non-corrupt FIFA without one.
> Thank go there is still a bastion of democracy/fairness left in Uefa
To be a bit cynical on this, I'm going to say that UEFA is worried the international scene will infringe on the European league scene.
They've found something to be outraged about, but the reality is more about the threat to their own bottom line than it is about the international game.
This is probably at least partially true. And they know that if they get together with South America, they can easily replace FIFA with another governing structure.
Here’s a solution: bar FIFA from selling viewing rights to their competitions and allow any station or channel to stream for free. That would grow the global game.
Take away the money and FIFA doesn’t have much to bargain with. They need to remember they are a purely administrative organization.
“Football is almost non-existent on this Pacific island. Nauru has never fielded a team in an official international match and it has just one – hard sand – pitch.
While there is interest in big Premier League matches, and children wear Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo kits, any attempts to actually play football tend to be mocked, unless it's Aussie rules.”
Reminiscent of the resource curse, the observation that many countries "blessed" with an abundance of natural resources actually fare pretty badly (including lots of corruption).
The Super League was a wonderful idea! Imagine watching the best teams in Europe playing each other multiple nights a week for months on end! Instead you’d rather watch 1 or 2 teams spend 10x more than anyone else and dominate the league every season. How is that fun or exciting? Would you rather watch a Bayern v Bremen match or a Bayern v Chelsea match? Or PSG, is it fun watching them not even bother playing their best guys in games against Lyon?
It makes no sense to me that people favored the (much) worse product because “tradition”.
Easy: it was going to be a (mostly) closed competition.
Competition gets boring real fast when it is always the same handful of teams. When there are no real consequences to losing, winning becomes meaningless.
Bayern v Chelsea matches stop being as interesting when every game is a Bayern v Chelsea match and most of them have no real impact either way. On the other hand, football becomes most interesting when it's a Bayern v Bremen and Bremen wins. People love an underdog after all, and nothing is more exciting than seeing an elite team take the game for granted and being punished for it.
The Super League is only a more interesting product from the "big name play ball" perspective. It is great when you want to make a fortune in tv rights and licensing, but it sucks for everyone who cares about football as a sport.
That’s the same justification my German friend made. I guess it’s American viewpoint vs European. The Super League would have been like the NFL in the US, where every team can beat any other any given night. That’s much more appealing to me, but to each their own.
The NFL is so balanced not because it’s a “super” league but because every team has the same salary cap. The best team and the worst team all have to spend essentially the exact same amount of money on their players, ensuring that no team can buy their way to the top.
Even there it’s still not really true that the best team can lose to the worst team in any given night. The best team is generally favored a lot and justifiably so. In soccer teams can also be quite mismatched and a lucky goal by the worse team can be the only score and win the match.
I agree with you, but I think it’s worth pointing out that the NFL is balanced because they tried to make it balanced - the salary cap, draft, revenue sharing, etc. are all outcomes of that plan, not the prime motivators themselves.
As a lapsed NY Jets fan, I disagree -- competent ownership and management is required more than good draft picks. To wit: Tom Brady was drafted at 199 overall, but the Jets' last two QB picks (Zach Williams and Sam Darnold) are both journeyman-level players.
I'm more of a hockey guy, which has a much stricter salary cap than the NFL, and the Edmonton Oilers are instructive here: they had a bunch of first overall picks 10 years ago (including multiple franchise players), but the team itself wasn't competitive until management changed and could build a cohesive team.
Bad management will certainly tank a team, but he’s right. The draft structure also helps to even out the teams.
In the NFL, winning is more about quality management and coaching (and some luck) than anything else. Which is a good thing. Leagues where winners are decided mostly on who is able to spend the most on players are lopsided and kind of lame.
The NFL is an association of billionaires that captured a sport and created rules to keep scarcity going and not let either of them ruin it for the others. In football we already have oil magnates buying individual clubs here and there, but at least they are very diluted among the real clubs.
In the Champions League the top, let’s say, 16 teams can all beat each other, so that part of the NFL experience is still there. The thing is that these top 16 teams change every year and there is no clear definition which clubs are top teams at the moment. But that’s the charm of it.
Football is very tribal. People want to dream that their local club have a shot to participate and maybe win the Champions league. Think of Leicester and Girona. In the Netherlands there is now a club called NEC and they have a shot to qualify for it, and that by itself is a historic moment for the club.
Exactly. Look at Bodø/Glimt from northern Norway. In 2017 they played in Norwegian 2. division and in 2020 they played AC Milan in the Europa League and won the top division in Norway and it's only been better since. BUT, this too will end at some point and another team will take their spot at the top. Maybe my team that has been struggling for decades will get their shit together and start winning something? That is much more exciting than seeing the same 10-20 money doped teams play matches all over the world to generate even more money.
Imagine never having any relegation risk for being crap.
Without divisions and removal of risk, what's the point?
Without the chance to work at a lower level and through simply being good, getting a team promoted how are you supposed to inspire? NFL, is both the least and the most American sport there is.
PSG has won 8 of the last 10 Ligue 1. Bayern 9 of the last 10 Bubdesliga. Barcelona/Real Madrid 9 of the last 10 La Liga.
That’s exciting? There’s 50+ teams in those leagues that stand NO shot of ever winning a championship, ever. The argument I’ve seen in this thread is either 1) it’s thrilling when my favorite average team upsets the backups of one of the powerhouses and 2) it’s exciting to get relegated and then come back.
You know what’s even more exciting…winning a championship. And every August every NFL fan starts with the hope and belief that this is their year. NFL has Leicester-lite situations every few years. Patriots were worst 2 years ago, lose in the championship the next year.
I will give credit to the Premier League - they’re doing it right. As mentioned, too 15-20 teams are competitive and could win a title in a given year. You know why it’s the best league - they set up a revenue sharing model similar to US leagues. Equal chance of winning = most excitement for fans of the entire league.
You can fuck right off trying to create a closed league where only a "chosen" few clubs take part.
It might just be an entertainment spectacle to you but for others it's very tied into local identity.
The idea that outside money men should be allowed to come in and destroy open competition is highly offensive to me.
The best years in football are when a smaller club gets a run of luck and beats the big boys. Or when one of the super clubs gets relegated and their fans have experience a season or two in the lower leagues.
You're not taking that away from us without a fight!
AFCON is already a thing and while it is decently popular it’s no where near the world cup or the euros. Part of that is that it takes place during the domestic club competitions though.
African teams are definitely up and coming. South Africa was surprisingly poor in the tournament but there were some decent performances by African teams, notably Morocco. Cape Verde also punched (or kicked?) way above their weight.
CONCACAF extremely weak. They didn't even say they'll boycott. They're likely just as corrupt as the other countries and may still vote it through, they're just sad they were not consulted.
CONCACAF and UEFA almost always vote together, but they are far outnumbered by every other region and FIFA only needs a majority vote for a rule to pass. You're excluding about half of the planet by only mentioning Africa.
CONCACAF and UEFA together is 96 out of 211 votes. They've since being joined by the Asian Football Confederation for a large majority against. And no reason to suspect the bung Infantino offers for voting in his direction is anywhere near enough to sway CONMEBOL.
The African confederation is actually marginally smaller than the European one. It also has no shortage of internal disagreements, brings in very little revenue, and the bigger nations are ultimately going to look at where the money is and see that it isn't trying to plough ahead without Europe, Asia or the United States.
CONCACAF was actually one of Infantino's best hopes, a mixture of the US, a few nations that hugely benefited from Infantino's other world cup reforms and a few that have no realistic prospect of World Cup football but would love $40m in return for voting a particular way...
Since AFC have now joined them[0][1], FIFA no longer have the votes for this to pass.
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ce345l6kg6ro - "Uefa - the body that governs European football - has 55 votes. Concacaf, which oversees football in North, Central America and the Caribbean, has 35 and Asia has 46." which only leaves 75 votes from the 211 and he'd need 106.
[1] I've no idea why the BBC doesn't properly capitalise UEFA or CONCACAF. I assume it's either some weird style guide or the subeditors are having another day off.
On the capitalization, it seems the BBC will always use title case for acronyms (Nasa, Nato) and all caps for initialisms (ATM, SNP). I did try to search for SQL to see if the Beeb thinks it should be read as Sequel or Es-que-el, but their search refuse to show exact results and keeps giving me articles about the Scottish National Party instead.
"Where you would normally pronounce the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Maga, Sars, Aids, Nasa, Opec, Apec)."
Wondering about this. 10 years ago it was true but Brazil are a shadow of their former selves, and Argentina without the likes of Messi and Aguero aren't the same. I know they reached the final but Messi almost had the golden boot.
Wouldn't be surprised to see Africa surpass South America in the next decade
UEFA leaving already leaves a pretty big gaping hole in any future FIFA tournament, since it'd exclude Spain (1st), England (3rd), France (4th), Norway (5th), Belgium (6th), Switzerland (joint 7th), Portugal (13th), Netherlands (17th), Germany (18th), Croatia (20th), Sweden (27th), Austria (28th), Bosnia and Herzegovina (29th).
That's 75% of the final four and of the quarterfinals, 44% of the round of 16. Then if you add CONCACAF into the mix, it comes to 63% of the RO16.
Yes, it's just been won by one! For me one of the gaping holes in this tournament was Italy. That would have been unthinkable years ago. It is strange seeing New Zealand there but not Russia, but there are political reasons for that.
The issue is every federation - whether they never qualified for the world cup or won final(s) - gets one vote. This has become a big issue, with any proposal to give more money (even if that entails compromising on key principles) to federations (by making more money) is almost certain to pass because of very poor FAs that need it / want it desperately.
Yeah, but if UEFA stays true to their word, passing this proposal is guaranteed to lead to the end of a FIFA-led world cup. They have the votes to privatize the world cup, but in doing so would destroy the very thing they are trying to privatize, and likely destroy FIFA as a whole
Meanwhile UEFA can just get together with South America and form a new governing body for a new world cup
The US just hosted as main host again after only 30 years. Brazil waited from 1950 to 2014 to host again, a full 64 years, and it’s arguably one of the countries most cared about in soccer.
Hosting the tournament has nothing to do with it. America is a lucrative market, and on top of that, FIFA can get away with charging insane ticket prices. I'm Canadian and soccer is my primary sport. Unfortunately, on a global level, nobody really cares about Canada or US when it comes to soccer.
So it used to be that there were pre-tournament games, to qualify.
A lot of countries... they wouldn't qualify. They'd play an ample amount of pre-tournament games though.
Now, you seen more countries qualify, and you see countries who used to not qualify, dropping ASAP (in the deathmatch 16th matches, right after poule).
So what did we get out of that? A few matches during the tournament, and they were quite frankly meaningless.
These countries which made it to deathmatch 1/16th gained nothing. It is a scam, a trick. They think they gained fame, but they really have not, since the barrier to get to the deathmatch has been lowered.
Furthermore, if you follow a corrupt scheme, you can ensure a country like Argentina is going to have the least chance to end up with strong opponents.
No, mr. Infantino. We need less corruption in FIFA, not more.
* We don't want a drink break to watch commercials..
* ..or a 30 min break with a bunch of actors (who sing with autotune) when your own rules say it may only be a 15 min break.
* We don't want red cards commutated or revoked.
* We don't want star players not getting yellow or red card, when other players are getting one for the same foul.
* We don't want a yellow card being reversed, then given to an opponent, based on 'identity mismatch'.
* We don't want to see racism or political statements.
* We don't want to see rugby, we want to see football.
* We want to see fair-play, with a meaningful VAR which can be called by the captain or coach of each team twice (getting back their call if agreed on).
You don't need a for-profit in your chain to fix the above. You need a non-profit with a non-corrupt chair, and you've proven you're not fit. Red card for you, mr. Infantino. You're out, arrivederci.
> Now, you seen more countries qualify, and you see countries who used to not qualify, dropping ASAP (in the deathmatch 16th matches, right after poule).
> So what did we get out of that? A few matches during the tournament, and they were quite frankly meaningless.
The answer for FIFA is of course money. More countries, more games, more money.
But the non-cynical answer is that all of those countries got to see their teams play 3 World Cup games. Some got to see more than that. I would bet that many of those countries’ citizens are very happy with the expanded tournament, and good for them. We also got Cape Verde this year, who many people around the world were excited for.
>>* We want to see fair-play, with a meaningful VAR which can be called by the captain or coach of each team twice (getting back their call if agreed on).
I am not sure what your problem with Argentina is, but with a meaningful VAR, Cucurella would have been sent off and Enzo Fernandez would have stayed on the pitch. I am sick of the anti-Argentina racist campaign. Just follow the amount of yellow and red cards they were given in their last three games in the WC.
Fernandez deserved each of his yellow cards. Especially the second for that reckless and dangerous tackle.
Cucurella did not violate the rule. He touched his mouth for an instant. The rule is not “if you ever touch your mouth you get ejected”, which is why VAR didn’t do anything and neither did the ref on the field.
I generally have nothing against Argentina but they were wildly outplayed in the last game, they were disrespectful, and Messi’s appeal to the ref to try to get Cucurella ejected was shameful.
It's already an entity that makes billions that's run as a business even though it's nominally one of the few parts of the sport that isn't for profit, and it's not like they really need private equity to help them put ticket prices up, as the last World Cup showed.
Regardless of rhetoric about "not to be sold", the bigger issue is that this looks like a very bad financial arrangement for a sport that is awash with funds already so doesn't need to sell its future revenues off cheaply or learn how to make money from PE, but probably a good deal for Infantino and chums. Corruption at FIFA is nothing new, but a behind-closed-doors sweetheart deal for a large fraction of their future revenue was really pushing at boundaries ...
And Infantino had become so convinced of his own genius he thought that giving member states a fait accompli, a ticking clock and an indication that most of the money would go to states that voted yes (and a financial deal that would be an attractive bung to the 100 or so FIFA members with no chance of actually qualifying, but shrinks the future revenue stream for everyone else) would actually fly.
Plus UEFA already makes more money than FIFA, could happily organize a rival competition attracting more top teams from the rest of the world and sponsorship money if it came to that, and had a unique opportunity to flex where fans and clubs would be universally behind them...
Agreed, the tickets to the tournament this year were just outrageously priced. Football is historically a working class sport, but $1,000 to watch a team like DR Congo in the group stage is next level criminality. And it's only going to get worse from here.
FIFA looked at this World Cup as an experiment. They wanted to see whether turning the monetization knob all the way to 11 would encounter significant resistance or whether fans would still watch/attend. The US, with its plethora of expensive stadiums and lax regulatory environment for price gouging compared to Europe, was the perfect testing environment. They upped the number of teams to 48 to get more games, used dynamic ticket pricing, added hydration breaks for more commercials in markets that would allow it and added a few other income streams. All this more than doubled their profits because, and this is the important part going forward, fans didn’t push back. They complained, but the still came/watched.
So this will now be the new norm. Host countries will be ones where laws don’t prohibit gouging fans. They’ll come up with creative solutions to meet the rotation requirement like the upcoming host a couple games in South America farce that’s allowing them to go to Saudi Arabia after that. They’ll continue to push the boundaries of decency until they get sufficient pushback.
There was pushback if you look at per-team attendance situations, but there's more than enough people living in the US making a ton of money that can easily afford the crazy prices. It did lower how many people from some big football nations decide to follow their team around. Not just due to the prices, but the travel distances. Just consider the practical logistics for, say, Spain's run. 2 games in Atlanta (Cabo verde and Saudi Arabia), then go play Uruguay in Guadalajara, then Austria in SoFi/L.A, then Portugal in the Dallas metro, back to SoFi for Belgium, again to Arlington for France, and New Jersey for Argentina: That's a lot of travel and hotel changing, because there's no reasonable way to go to a game and come back in the same day.
For all the problems in Qatar's world cup, a fan could watch two games a day, live,because the stadiums were that close. The 2026 bid maximized distances about as much as one could, vs, say, at least limit it all to the west coast, which would still be a lot by normal standards, bout would mean fewer huge metros where you could dip your toe in and ask for a ton of money, as there'd be very few games there.
And again, we are talking a team that won, and was among the favorites to win from day 1, just not being able to fill 1/3rd of the stadium, or anything close.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying but I said before any of this mess, and just dealing with the ticket purchasing experience, that this would be the last World Cup I attend.
It’s sad though. The World Cup, while imperfect, remains an event that brings the world together. We don’t have many of those left.
There is no right and wrong here. Watching a bunch of guys kick a ball around is a completely optional activity. The stadium can accommodate x people, and x+n people want to watch the game.
Therefore, someone has to be left out. That can be decided multiple ways, but there is no philosophical reason that money being the deciding factor is wrong. We use that mechanism for almost everything else in the world. It's the worst system...except for all the others.
If the problem is the size of the wealth gap between people, that's wholly unrelated to sports game tickets, and in the purview of government policy.
You see it in England all the time where organized fan groups do push back and protest ending up with the owners walking back the suggested ticket increases.
England is bizarre. Away tickets in the premiership are capped at £30 but I was routinely paying £48 in the championship and £36 in league 1 (second and third leagues)
Not as much as the popular culture makes out. Association football (as opposed to folk football) was codified in English private schools such as Uppingham, and at Cambridge University. Working class people played very different forms of football at the time, including carrying the ball etc. Association football was the more genteel form of the game. It used to be the main sport at Eton College, not rugby.
While true, it’s not a refutation at all. Look at the attendance makeup of every English club in the last 100 years, listen to the stories of the people who grew up supporting their local team, the young boys that grew up playing and became local or national heroes. That tells you where the soul of football lives.
I've been hearing this "football is working class" thing all my life. Honestly, depending on where you are in the UK, you will see working class people participating in rugby league (Northern England), rugby union (South Wales, West Country, Scottish Borders), hurling, Gaelic football (both NI), shinty (the Highlands), cricket (Yorkshire and one or two other places), basketball, boxing and all the rest. Apart from rugby league, none of these games is playing the "prolier than thou" card.
Several of those games are cheaper to go and watch. In fact, it's cheaper to go to the opera or ballet than the football as someone pointed out to me, even though those have a different image. Season tickets to major clubs are extortionate. (Yes, that includes the SPL.) It isn't as working class as it makes out, other than the fact anyone can play it in the park. (But the same is true of other sports.)
Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football (which looked more like rugby) and has basically covered up its posh origins. The "football" our ancestors played seven hundred years ago has almost no resemblance to soccer.
Literally none of the things you said refute my statement
> depending on where you are in the UK,
I specifically referred to English clubs. The fact that other home nations prefer different sports has no bearing on English culture. The fact that multiple sports are considered working class has no bearing on the fact that football is one of those sports.
> Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football
Irrelevant. My frame of reference was working class people over the last century. What Mediaeval England did was never part of my argument.
Already is a highly corrupted profit machine. I am not against nor in favor of the proposed change. If EUFA is against is because they felt they are not being favored, it is not in favor of the sport.
Imagine being more money hungry than EA - a company which makes billions from gaslighting children into gambling money on getting their favourite players.
It's wild how bad the experience is working for top level sports teams can be. Many (in the US at least) have an absolute lock on massive profits and value increasing like crazy ... but they operate like the cheapest small business that can't bother the new guy a chair that isn't broken.
The point is not how much it made, it is how to transfer that wealth (whether 6B or 60B) out of a non-profit into someone else's account without looking like, or literally being, a criminal.
The new thing is trying to take the organization from a non-profit to a corporation. Mainly so the executives can increase their already large compensation apparently.
FIFA made $~15 billion USD this World Cup, roughly double what they made in Qatar in 2022. There are many low-hanging fruit that can be optimized to increase that revenue by 10x.
I didn't realize the commercial-block-sized "hydration breaks" were that profitable.
For a second, I thought the Americanization[1] of fùtbol would be done gradually and no one would complain as we'd be slowly boiled. I'm glad the corrupt bastards got greedy/impatient and took a big swing.
1. Sports primarily as a business, catering to owners first, sponsors second, broadcasters third, and then lastly, fans. IMO non-profit sports organizations are the best model for fans, who I identify the most with.
It is absolutely outrageous that FIFA unilaterally changed the structure of a football match (that’s been the same since the nineteenth century) with no consultation, just so they could show ads
Per-ticket prices were a big factor too. By turning it into an open bidding process, every ticket sold at close to its market value, and many above that.
I have never before seen "FIFA World Cup" used so much and I guess that's why. Do you enjoy watching FIA F1 or IOC Olympics? It's pushy and inconsiderate self-promotion that nobody wants to hear.
I also wonder if it's a trademark thing -- there are other world cups, but there's only one FIFA capital-W world capital-C cup. Just off the top of my head, the last decade has had cricket, rugby, basketball, and ice hockey world cups.
> There are many low-hanging fruit that can be optimized to increase that revenue by 10x.
The $15 billion figure is for FIFA's ENTIRE 2023-2026 revenue cycle, so not just this World Cup. But the obvious "low-hanging fruit" was making the tournamenta lot larger (104 matches instead of Qatar's 64), so a lot more tickets, hospitality sales, ads etc
Also two 3 minute hydration breaks per match, giving broadcasters additional advertising windows.
Yeah, I can see them doubling that revenue by being even more extortionate with ticket prices and adding another 16 teams (as already planned to happen) to add more games.
But the only way they 10x is to start running more FIFA competitions, and that's when they encroach on UEFA's cash cows...
First off, fire Infantino on the spot, just the same way they fired Blatter for corruption.
This last world cup was the worse I've ever seen since 1978, almost 50 years, and I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. We all know billions are moved under the table, but money can never break rules and traditions, specially if they don't benefit fans and players above all
Did anybody ask the players about the hydration break? About increasing teams to 48, now to 64? More games is more possibility of injuries and benched players are no good for the show. So always be careful about wanting more golden eggs, the goose may be exhausted already
While I agree with your view on hydration breaks, I have to disagree that 48 teams was a bad thing. It led to wonderful stories like Cape Verde (and their goalie) who were competitive against Argentina. They wouldn’t even have qualified under the old system. We saw Congo almost beat England (again, a non-qualifier in the old days). Conversely, scoring goals is exciting and Germany’s 7-1 over Curaçao let us see some amazing goals.
More teams means more underdogs, more chances for greatness and more high points. I know it was purely for money, but I think the move to 48 teams really worked.
Cape Verde would have qualified for the World Cup even if there were 32 teams. Cape Verde topped its group, beating usual world cup teams like Cameroon.
The narrative that Cape Verde is a beneficiary of the 48-team setup is completely and utterly false.
"The 2026 FIFA World Cup was the hottest World Cup since the competition began in 1930. A Guardian analysis found that close to 20 percent of matches were played under heat and humidity conditions that FIFPRO, the players' union, has flagged as dangerous enough to warrant delaying or postponing play. Some 20 games were played at wet bulb globe temperatures that hit or exceeded 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit)." - Katharine Hayhoe's newsletter
I agree that something must be done, but the hydration break is the wrong solution for two reasons.
First, plenty of countries have been regularly playing under these conditions and will keep doing so after the World Cup. Too hot to play in the afternoon? Play at night.
Second, and more important, it changes the game in a major way because playing for 90 minutes with a single break is not the same as playing with three. I imagine data will say whether this has an effect or not, but I cannot imagine that an endurance player would feel the same if they have to always stop halfway.
Thing is this is a technical justification for something that was done purely to add an extra add break in - there is no point in having the technical discussion.
The problem I had with this World Cup was the over commercialization of it. The ticket prices, the cost of getting to the stadiums, the fucking trophy being presented in some bullshit LV case (like it mattered).
From my perspective I let it slide thinking it was the US’s take on how they do sports so fair enough. I can see now following the hyper commercial US World Cup that FIFAs has dollar signs spinning in their eyes and want to continue this way of working.
Unfortunately it doesn’t align with the values of football. It smacks of the Euro Super League (which would have disrupted the whole pyramid of football). It should be nipped in the bud, Infantino fired, and FIFA continuing as a not for profit.
I think the Balogun red-card and just inconsistency in general with red card suspensions was the only real blight on the tournament and that's fixable with some rules changes. The world cup in general was tremendously entertaining, though.
Football world cups are always entertaining. There are always big upsets, big fairy tales, and big controversies. I have been watching them live since 1994 when I was in 4th grade. This world cup was also entertaining. But it also left some bad taste in my mouth, and unlike any other edition, I still can't get over.
The hydration breaks and the commercials. The half time show. The differential treatment and harassment of players, fans, and officials at immigration based on country of origin. The whole fracas about Iran participating and USA hosting and bombing them on the same day. VAR calling back a goal due to Egypt's foul on Argentina but letting Argentina's foul on Austria go. The dubious red card of the swiss player that IFAB later said was a mistake. Even more dubious recall of Balogun suspension. Objectively the worst world cup final match ever- every other team Argentina defeated in knockouts would probably given us better football in the final match, including Cape Verde. Paredes assaulting Spain players after the match when he should have been sent off during the match. Lisandro Martinez saying they respect all their opponents and don't understand the hate, after they flew Falklands Island banner in England player's faces.
Messi wearing a robe and lifting the trophy at the end of Qatar '22 as the GOAT was so compelling that it glossed over the HR violation issues. But there was no redeeming qualities this time. The president of the United States ruined that moment by refusing to get out of the Spanish player's faces.
inconsistency with VAR was a huge slight. The Colombia offside call where VAR showed his big toe was offside was pretty ridiculous. Theres no way that is within the margin of error for that technology.
Two teams with 1/4 of the world's potential customers did not make the cut for this year's tournament, more's the pity. The tournament will likely be expanded until these two teams can qualify.
Wouldn't it be easier for countries of 1+ billion people to find 11 players who can play at the level of other countries? The Asian Football Confederation is hardly the most competitive in the first place.
I don’t know about China, but India has a lot of fans and had pretty good viewership.
Whether a national team qualifies isn’t that strongly correlated to whether the sport is popular. Most of south and Central America are as fanatical as Brazil or Argentina, but they were not in the tournament.
“Football’s future cannot be dictated by the expectations of those whose first duty is to maximise financial return.”
Very well said…replace the word football with internet/technology/web/research/university or so many others and you might understand why this single powerful phrase is so important.
Platitudes sound nice but in the real world you need incentives and there are plenty. Other than real madrid and barcelona and a few italian clubs, very few euro clubs are run as non-profits. Easy to argue that maximizing financial return is the reason football has grown in prominence over the last 20-30 years.
I say that but I also agree i dont think fifa or any of the regional orgs need more or any financial incentives. Keep profits for the club, keep the governing body to governing, and the regional orgs to organizing.
I actually think this is an area where the us could do a lot of good - sweep in, clean out fifa and as many of the regional orgs as you're able (they're connected), and keep the pressure on. Only the US is really able to do this and we hate cheating in sports.
> Other than real madrid and barcelona and a few italian clubs, very few euro clubs are run as non-profits.
Not non-profit per se, but the Bundesliga[1] requires that teams are majority owned by club members and investors are limited to minority ownership.[2]
In Portugal at least, all (I think? At least all the major ones like Benfica, Sporting and Porto) of the clubs are sports associations and are controlled by the club members. This does not mean that there isn’t major money in this, but a club president can get removed by fans, which happened with Porto recently (due to corruption… the club almost went bankrupt).
These clubs are often very old as well, and often were small regional clubs that got big, so they are significant in their cities and do a ton more than just football.
There are 200+ participating countries. Many of those are on his side, because they’re tiny and easy to bribe: a few million is significant for them and often that money can be siphoned into corrupt pockets.
That said, a World Cup without any of the 55 UEFA countries wouldn’t make sense commercially.
Past tense. Were on his side. He also just lost a unanimous vote with CONCACAF, the body representing many of the smallest islands least likely to ever qualify for the World Cup or actually generate money from football (and a small number of larger nations that will benefit significantly from his other pledges like more places for CONCACAF natons at the World Cup)
In addition to them all knowing that a World Cup without UEFA isn't going to happen, they also weren't impressed by being presented with a fixed offer and a ticking clock rather than an opening of negotiations....
Its not just tinyness and poorness of the countries – it is also the indifference of many nations. Just because, say Brunei has the same voice as France, it does not mean that the sport, or the national team's performance is important enough for their people to care or even notice if their representatives are selling their nation's voice to the highest bidder.
The Wikipedia page for "Ratlines" [1] discusses "systems of escape routes used by Nazis and their collaborators" and how they settled in Rome, Spain, Genoa, and various South American countries.
But there is no mention of Werner Von Braun there - for that you need to go to "List of Germans relocated to the US via Operation Paperclip" [2], which is described as a list of "German scientists, engineers, and technicians (...) taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment".
So my answer would have been "everywhere", but apparently Nazis fled exclusively to South America while good, honest German citizens working for the official German party were taken to the US.
I think the evil part is the [at any cost] part, the incentives are irrelevant. An AI that only wants to make paperclips isn't evil because of the paperclips.
The heads of Football Associations of tiny countries who took enormous bungs to vote for him and then spent the money on some facilities but mostly themselves
> Sepp Blatter weighed in, writing on X: "The close relationship between the Fifa president and the US President [Donald Trump] has reached a financial dimension that is deeply damaging football. No-one has the right to sell our game."
Blatter was corrupt to the core but cared about the actual sport if you look at his record. This new president is like a james bond villian caricature like he actually wants to destroy the sport.
It's just yet another Donald Trump story, which are legion around here these days. The World Cup itself is also a hot topic right now, with Euros and Muricans trying to rage bait each other.
The moment external investors acquire ownership interests in FIFA competitions, football changes forever. Commercial return becomes a permanent obligation. Investor expectations become a daily pressure. From that moment onwards, every decision on the international calendar, every decision on competition formats and every decision shaping the future of football is no longer driven by what best serves the game, but by what best serves shareholders.
These words apply to any investment. It's worth considering as part of any business, including many of the businesses we're here to watch grow - the moment you have others involved as equity partners, the entire culture has to change. Do it consciously, or not at all.
> These words apply to any investment [...] the entire culture has to change
I think that's fatalistic. There are plenty of people and legal structures that limit the influence of investors to reasonable returns, most famously founders retaining control, or the public benefit corporation (like Veeva) or nonprofit (OpenAI as the counter-example showing how even structures are no guarantee). It's all part of setting up the systems to work with available people, within the business leader's ambit.
Why only now? UEFA should boycott the world cup, period. It should have been enough even before the Balogun nonsense. They have the best league and the best teams, they have the know how and could easily host the UEFA World Cup.
They could host a tournament without the pay-to-win arbitrary overruling of red cards and the clownish half time entertainment. Nobody would care about the FIFA World Cup.
Yeah, none to the African, South American, or Asian nations who contribute many of the best players though. And they don't share it around their own countries that well either with all the revenue going to the big 5 and the rest can just go sing.
The non-profit makes no profit but it doesn’t mean those involved can’t make profits. An investment in a new jet for the boss is an investment back into the non-profit!
Exactly! You would have a number of oil states competing, and that's it.
They have everything to win. It's opposite of the PGA/LIV situation, the breakout group have the stronger trademark and the better teams. It's baffling that UEFA didn't move in already when FIFA was too greedy even for EA, which is saying something.
Before you eulogize UEFA too much (ok, too late, you already did), answer me this.
Where did Infantino come from? Answer: UEFA
And for that matter, which continent did his predecessor Sepp Blatter start his football admin career in? Hint: he's not from Asia or Africa
Probably the most widely admired admin in big-time football right now is al-Khalifa, the head of PSG. A Qatari. You know - those guys who organized by common consent is considered the best World Cup in modern times (during which EUROPEAN teams were ostentatiously protesting on the pitch - while keeping VERY quiet WHEN playing a World Cup in a country who is still facilitating an ONGOING GENOCIDE) .
And from reports, he doesn't want to touch FIFA with a 10 foot barge pole.
Europe had managed to keep the lions share of footballs global revenues to itself, while keeping Africa as basically a "football nursery" where teenagers get almost trafiked across Europe before 90% are discarded.
This is one of the reasons why a (corrupt, mendacious & sly) Infantino had some support across Africa & Asia. Because he played off that imbalance. Rather like one mafioso giving you "protection" against another mafia mob.
Just saying, Europe & UEFA arent necessarily the angels in any of this ...
That’s such a weak argument. So every European person or organisation guilty by association? Are the Swiss doubly guilty?
> Europe had managed to keep the lions share of footballs global revenues to itself, while keeping Africa as basically a "football nursery" where teenagers get almost trafiked across Europe before 90% are discarded.
UEFA is not running any African competition or including any African team. What’s your point?
African federations might see the short term gains of Infantino’s bribes, but long term maximising profit is corrosive. They have a much better shot at growing the African cup of nations, which is not doing too bad and increasing in popularity (even in Europe to some degree).
It is not hypocritical of UEFA to point that out.
> Just saying, Europe & UEFA arent necessarily the angels in any of this
Hard to think of a modern institution as corrupt as fifa. That may not bother too many people because it’s not their government, but I just think it stinks
FIFA has been monstrously corrupt since at least as far back as the 1970s (Havelange).
I backslid this year, but did completely boycott watching in 2018 and 2022. Russia is a pariah state and should never have been allowed to host, and Qatar was manifestly unsuitable.
The only difference this year is that the bribery and political favors were out in the open.
There are levels to it. Sepp Blatter was notoriously corrupt, but Infantino makes his "envelope full of cash under the table" style of corruption look amateurish.
Eh, Russophobia is also funny, as it is typically applied to those that hate Russia, as opposed to those that fear Russia.
"Putin's apologist" as a smear on those who reject the mainstream narrative about Ukraine war (even if highly critical of Russia/Putin) is a better match.
The US has used force to unilaterally remove two heads of state this year, and is enforcing a blockade on Cuba that is wreaking havoc in an attempt to remove a third head of state.
That Russia is worse should not shield the US from criticism.
In the Dictator's Handbook the authors argued that FIFA and IOC function similar to autocratic dictatorships because there is a small group of people who are essential to power. Therefore it is rational to buy them rather than do the right thing by the fans (who have very little power). As cold as the reasoning is, the explanation stuck with me.
Their suggestion is to open up the power structure, e.g. to all past players/Olympians.
> Therefore it is rational to buy them rather than do the right thing by the fans (who have very little power)
The problem withthis is that FIFA/IOC _rely_ on the athletes, players and countries, but none of those make any money so they _can't_ be bought. The prestige and honor is the reason to compete in the world cup/olympics, and money won't change/fix that. See LIV golf for what happens when you try it.
The FIA aren’t as bad (although I might be biased as an F1 fan). They’re certainly really really terrible at optics but at least everyone involved in that is making money out of it and aren’t under the illusion that they’re doing it for the clout.
Interestingly, both FIFA and IOC are headquartered in Switzerland, a country that is ranked by Transparency International as one least corrupt countries in the world… Draw you own conclusions.
One of the least corrupt countries, whose attorney general had secret meetings with Infantino when in charge of an investigation of corruption in FIFA.
Until recently Swiss banks were pretty famously a great place to do the kind of banking needed for global scale corruption. They still sort of are as long as none of the parties have told the bank that they are American.
Switzerland might not be corrupt, but they are fine with enabling it.
A common factor seems rather that international sports orgs are often very corrupt. Would be interesting to understand why it happens systematically. Lack of good governance structures must be part of it.
I think fundamental issue is that only people who want power, money or influence get involved at highest levels. For rest operating at grass roots or slightly higher and having local impact is more important. Farther you move from there more power hungry and less passionate about underlying thing the people get.
Oh boy I couldn’t disagree more. Grassroots and local sports is absolutely plagued with politics, favouritism and corruption. Ask anyone who has been on the committee or coaching for their local kids soccer/athletics/hurling (in my case) teams - what goes on is absolutely criminal.
Probably the same way it was in Germany: in some foreign countries, where it's the cost of doing business.
Switzerland has an unusually direct democracy, which keeps their house in order. Maybe it's also what allows Switzerland to benefit from crime and corruption without getting infected with the rot.
> As a result of today’s discussion, no UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.
This seems to have actual teeth. What's Infantino going to do to save face? No one cares about a world cup without the Europeans.
How was it a shit show? I’m genuinely curious. I attended 5 games (Atlanta, LA and Dallas) and was a fantastic experience minus the process to get tickets.
Not OP, but I would guess: "hydration breaks" to inject commercials, half-time shows that felt alien to much of the core audience, and various rule-bending shenanigans (Ronaldo, Balogun).
Hydration breaks a tad weird. Half time shows were pretty subtle, didn’t change the length of the break except for the final. There’s no soccer competition without someone complaining about refereeing. Def always things to improve but I had fun, all people around me seemed to have fun. I flew in an out and always was either public transportation or uefa provided shuttles… It was really well run. Not something you can call a “shit show”
Oh boy, how could I forget about the Iranian team, and the other players/referees/staff that were rejected or stuck at the airport for hours ? It was worse than a sh-t show actually.
> There’s no soccer competition without someone complaining about refereeing.
Yeah, but most of them go without president calling Infantino to change the referee verdict. All the while the president says "I dont even know the game".
> It was really well run. Not something you can call a “shit show”
I can. Oh and not allowing referee in due to his race and mistreating teams due to politics.
Soccer is a legitimate name for the sport. Football is properly the name of a whole group of sports OR in a local context the locally most popular type of football.
It's very weird for one type of football to try to claim the name all for itself globally.
Lots of people call it that. The Australian national team are called the Socceroos. The best, most authoritative magazine about the sport is called "World Soccer", published in the UK, where the name soccer originated. Even if the name soccer was used only in the USA, it would be a legitimate name. Different cultures use different names for things.
An argument I've heard is that since hydration breaks can affect the game, if you are going to have them they should be mandatory and at the same time in all games in a tournament rather than doing them like they did when they were originally introduced in 2014. Then they were only done in games when the conditions on the field got dangerous.
football games can have "momentum". An extra break allows for a breather and a tactical intervention from the coach. That also why we saw keepers sitting down (faking injury) in the Premier league last season.
Anyway, a hydration break while it's raining is a bit of a tell it has nothing to do with the needs of the players.
Telling of what? I imagine if you're running around like eg Ronaldo would be during a game, it doesn't matter how air conditioned the space is, he'd still need to hydrate, on account of all the running that happens. I'm no football expert, but I'm lead to believe that does happen during matches.
I think your attitude, which is all too common, is that we should do things according to the "footballing nations" without any other consideration for the rest of the world. North America is part of the world.
The US itself is far and away the world's biggest sporting nation, and many there see football's informality and cynicism as antiquated and, honestly, embarrassing. The world outside of the US wants to protect "their" game, though it's not theirs to begin with, ignoring the existing, systematic issues with it, even making contrived arguments about the word "soccer" itself.
FIFA's shenanigans off-the-field were a problem, but they're not unique to the World Cup nor its location. I'd argue the last Copa America and Cup of Nations had worse issues with officiating/corruption.
I'm American, so I'm not sure who your comment is for. Anti-Americanism isn't a "gotcha" to me. If anything, it's confirmation of the persistent asymmetry in these discussions.
Football (or basketball, if you're Lithuanian) is a massive cultural institution in many parts of the world. The difference is that sports—just sports—are the institution in America. We could look at revenues, but that's far too easy. Look at the whole picture. Look at youth participation, women's sports, college sports. It's not comparable anywhere else.
For football specifically, the current situation is that a handful of European countries control the best leagues and consistently have the best international squads. This isn't changing anytime soon. The game is already owned by a group of elite countries—almost exclusively in Europe, benefitting from geography, mutual competition, and visa gatekeeping—and one confederation (UEFA).
The fact that the game shouldn't be "ruined" (or latent anti-Americanism) suggests you're okay with this situation. You didn't comment on rule enforcement or cynical play either, but I assume you're okay with those things or take them for granted.
Americans see football through the lens of other sports, because we are a sporting culture, and football is one of many. All the "American" sports have their problems too, but we don't pretend they don't for phony reasons. But we also have choices and exercise those choices. Footballing nations, I get the impression, see all sports through the lens of football. I often wonder whether fans in footballing countries genuinely like their sport for what it is or whether it's just a narcissistic cultural inheritance.
> The difference is that sports—just sports—are the institution in America.
What does this mean?
I'm really trying to understand what you're saying but I don't get it. Are you saying that other countries don't have a sport culture like the US? What makes you think that?
Again, if you don't want things ruined, then that implies that you don't think football, in its current state, is not already ruined. This isn't a position you've earned, you're just assuming it.
And it's awkward to defend because, as I've already stated, the status quo is: colonial powers controlling the game at the pro/international level, bad and inconsistent officiating, normalization of cynical/unsportsmanlike play, and massive corruption. As an American, these are easy to see because we have the advantage of a massive sporting culture. We have salary caps to enforce parity and scrutinize our own leagues' rules. There is a competitive marketplace for sports. If things are broken, people stop watching.
What about the US's influence in improving soccer would ruin it further? Moreover, do you understand your own sport well enough to make the judgment?
UEFA isn't really an initialism (well, maybe a backronym). FI is from French and FA is from English. French also has the word Football, but it was taken from English. - Googling.
The Iranian team’s treatment is a prime example. The Somalian ref being denied entrance is another. And the Balogun red card is a double example (it shouldn’t have been a red card in the first place, but the precedent that the President of the host country can get a call overturned is even worse).
I am the last person to defend FIFA - I love the UEFA's stance here - but only Balogun's suspension can be pinned on FIFA. Those other things are down to USA politics. Bad, for sure, not really down to FIFA.
Other than those awful hydration breaks, they didn't ruin it much. I didn't love the extended half time in the final, but I was only hate watching Argentina anyway so didn't care much. Better to have the standard interval but not egregious to extend in the final. Overall it was a good tournament, a proper "feast of football" as we used to say. Some fine-tuning to do with the VAR but even then there weren't as many egregiously unfair calls as in years past. (Croatia's disallowed goal being a memorable example because it was so rare.) Many, many good games and some memorable moments - Cape Verde!
besides a significantly more common 4-3-3, I can't think of anything I particularly found entertaining - the waterworks, the extra VARs, the super special offside line. That's no feast. (and I can continue)
Yup! We had a bunch of friends over. Good times were had by all.
Finals are boring more often than not. You just have to accept that. And when one of the team’s key skill is suffocating the other side, a game like that was to be expected. Only my mighty compatriots were able to crack the code… once.
- The number of teams expanding weakened the group stage to a point of being ignorable
- The extraordinary pricing of the tickets
- "Hydration breaks" to cater for TV advertising
- The US red card being rescinded after a phone call from an interested party
- Argentina's free pass throughout
FIFA has been corrupt since the days of João Havelange, although his stance was broadly to bring football to more countries and just needed a way to finance that (enter stage left, Coca-Cola, and stage right, Adidas and ISL), but it started getting really wild after him.
It's gone unchecked. There was talk of the English FA pulling out of UEFA and FIFA some years ago, as there was a perception the soul of the game had been tarnished by both orgs.
This is a good first step, and I hope FIFA gets itself sorted. I hope UEFA also gets its house in order.
Ticket prices for all events anywhere will not come back down unless we make international travel harder. There were Taylor Swift fans who flew to every concert of one of her tours. When I attended the Hungaroring Grand Prix every single person seemed to be visiting from outside Hungary. Hosting in the wealthiest country of size of course made this worse but I predict ticket prices for popular events will only keep going up and up.
Argentina received more yellow cards on its last three games. How is that a "free pass"?
Cucurella should have been sent off, same as the Paraguay player for covering his mouth. Fernandez did get a yellow card for a very light challenge that he tried to avoid..
All the Argentina haters need to look at the facts. I expected more from HN.
Messi should've gotten red in the Algeria match (same ref who didn't have the balls to give star player a card, was doing the finals). Against England, Argentina were playing rugby again, and the ref just let it pass. Against Egypt, Egypt got a goal disqualified which.. was a goal. Against Switzerland, a rule of identity mismatch was used wrongly (it can only be applied on same team). Argentina was lucky to end the final with 10 players and only 1 goal against. It should've been 9 players, with a 3-0 score, but the corrupt FIFA couldn't match-fix that part. It'd have been too obvious.
>>Messi should've gotten red in the Algeria match (same ref who didn't have the balls to give star player a card, was doing the finals).
There is a big difference between an intentional and not intentional foul. There was a touch but Messi did try to stop and is clear from the video. Stop the racist campaign.
>>Against England, Argentina were playing rugby again, and the ref just let it pass.
Against England they received more yellows even considering the amount of fouls. Go have a look a Harry Kane foul against Messi. No punishment.
>>Against Egypt, Egypt got a goal disqualified which.. was a goal.
It was a foul. Clearly shown on the video. Nobody is discussing that
>>Against Switzerland, a rule of identity mismatch was used wrongly (it can only be applied on same team).
That was a clear and blatantly obvious simulation. Embolo fauls magically without a touch. That destroys the game integrity. Stop the racist campaign.
That was the referee understanding at that moment. It was re-clarified few days ago.
>>Argentina was lucky to end the final with 10 players and only 1 goal against. It should've been 9 players, with a 3-0 score, but the corrupt FIFA couldn't match-fix that part. It'd have been too obvious.
Argentina had an older squad, with a great keeper. Cucurella should have been sent off, same as the player from Paraguay from provoking and covering his mouth. You just spread hateful, racist messages. Good on you.
I guess you also think the "Hand of God" goal, was also a legitimate and fair goal because something something Maradonna something something Malvinas something something god?
Look, it's football. We're all entitled to have opinions, state them with vigour and passion, but...
Step back. Is it fair to drop the "racist" slur on somebody for having a different perspective?
Referees do their best, and often get it wrong, but it seems to most people - including many neutrals - that refs got it wrong more times than not when Argentina was playing, and in Argentina's favour.
Is that a conspiracy? Well, Infantino definitely wanted Argentina in the final, so did he try and create that somehow? He seems pretty shady, it's hard for people to trust that he _didn't_.
But I'm prepared to accept it was just variance. The problem is, that variance undermined the competition for many people, in the same way hydration breaks did. It made it a worse World Cup for many fans.
I get that for an Argentinian, that seems unfair, but if this had happened to England's benefit, do you honestly think you'd be making the same accusations and would accept it if any criticism that came in their direction was met with slurs?
Peace. Chill. We're good. We're brothers in football. Let's hope we get another World Cup in our lifetimes, and that we get to enjoy it - and that means something different to what we just saw, for everyone's sake.
> But I'm prepared to accept it was just variance. The problem is, that variance undermined the competition for many people
Honestly I found it really frustrating that Balogun got that red card (and gross when political meddling suspended it) while Messi got nothing for a similar infraction. But variance is part of the game. I don’t actually think most of it is in any way malicious and I am not sure refs can do much more. So much is subjective. I’ve watched games where they hand out yellows for every minor infraction and it’s a shitty experience for everyone (fans, players, and coaches).
I do think Messi gets favoritism. He gets awarded free kicks right outside the box for softball fouls that no one else gets. But they are trying to protect their star. They don’t want the WNBA thing where every other game Clark gets egregiously fouled.
> in the same way hydration breaks did. It made it a worse World Cup for many fans.
I don’t really understand the hate for the hydration breaks. Giving athletes some water seems reasonable even if the underlying reason is ads. I think they should be 1-2 minute breaks, though.
The halftime show in the final was more egregious than the hydration.
Dude, this is gross. Stop calling people racist for disagreeing with you about Argentina. It’s not racism to call out concerns about Argentina’s play or reffing bias.
You should be embarrassed to repeatedly resort to ad hominem attacks like this.
First, it was a new formula of the tournament with more teams which explains the headlines about a someone setting a new record every 2 days.
Second, the hydration (ads!) breaks were clearly used to tweak some tactics, player positionning, etc, making it another half-time. It's a strategic opportunity. Why not introduce a 2 min drill, then ? - yuck- That's not football.
Third, I won't talk about that specific red card or that penalty kick, but the fact that players and staff complained so much about the refereeing issues hurts the trust we can have into the game as a whole.
The 27 min half time was only in the final. Every world cup introduces changes that will stick or not (e.g golden goal rule). Hydration breaks probably won’t stay.
I’ve followed the sport all my life and referee complains I would say less than usual.
I like having more teams. Might even extend to 64 next time.
These are difference of opinion. Nothing singles out this world cup as a “shit show” as the OP. It was a great experience to me and pretty much anyone I encountered in the stadiums.
This bit was kind of baffling to me. Like, the US has a bunch of large stadiums. Presumably they sometimes get used for stuff. How is it not a constant disaster?
There’s a medium sized (50k capacity) stadium near me, and even _with_ a train station with a train each way every ten minutes right beside it, and within easy walking distance of about five high capacity bus routes, it’s always a bit of a shitshow when a big event finishes. I’ve no idea how it could work _at all_ if you’re just depending on buses and cars, which a bunch of the US stadiums seemed to be.
I believe a big issue was that significant amounts of parking were closed at each of the host stadiums for "security reasons", fan watch areas, etc. When they did some overhead shots of the stadiums, you could see tons of empty parking lot space.
For local NFL games in a bigger stadium that, most people attending do drive, but do not park at the stadium, rather nearby, then walk the rest of the way. This spreads out the traffic over a much larger set of roads.
Yes. I was there at the france-spain match. Flew in in the morning was directed to the shuttles by super nice volunteers. Reasonable lines that were mostly in the shade and they were handling free water bottles.
I can't agree with that. Host countries share their culture through the World Cup. South Africa had vuvuzelas, Qatar put a bisht on the winning captain's shoulders, and the USA had a half-time show.
"Players are entitled to an interval at half-time, not exceeding 15 minutes; a short drinks break (which should not exceed one minute) is permitted at the interval of half-time in extra time. Competition rules must state the duration of the half-time interval and it may be altered only with the referee’s permission."
My interpretation is it is 15 minutes unless the referee allows something else.
That's a stretched interpretation. The first sentence says the interval does not exceed 15 minutes. The most natural way to read the last sentence is that the competition rules state how long the half-time is under those parameters (i.e., the rules can state that the interval is 10 minutes, but not 1 hour); likewise, the referee can allow the competition organizers to change the duration of the interval -- the competition rules notwithstanding --, but still within the parameters of the 1st sentence.
I'm almost too afraid to ask but what the hell...what makes a good half-time show?
I ask in earnest. I'm not American. I know there's a huuugggee buzz on who gets to do the Superbowl half-time show. But they all look the same to me: overly-polished extravagant pop performances. That can be an insult or a compliment depending on your mood but I say that as a fact. That description applies to the WC half-time show too so I don't see what makes it bad. Maybe you can accuse it of being even more over-the-top and garishly extravagant but does that make it bad?
Bad Bunny's half-time show seems to be generally considered good. Well, he's a good performer definitely and performed his show well. But what makes that different from the universally-panned WC one?
For the record, Bad Bunny isn't even in my daily playlist. I do have Coldplay but Chris Martin was so peripheral to the WC spectacle I didn't even notice him during the live broadcast.
It feels to me there's something else merited here other than just the performance itself. Bad Bunny, given his background and off-stage activism, was largely seen as a political statement. The WC show just seems too foreign for the core non-Northern American market.
I watched the WC final in a noisy bar. During the halftime the bar had its own entertainment while a muted Justin Bieber playing his guitar emoted on the big screen. I've since watched it in Youtube and I still don't get the universal disdain for it. Maybe they should've called in a bunch of Eurovision performers?
The football itself wasn't bad, it was all the other stuff - prices, unfair treatment for Iran, hydration breaks, the whole Balogun thing, the pre-game and half-time shows at the final, Trump photo-bombing the Spanish celebration, etc. Every WC has its own problems and some of these things will be forgotten about soon, but it definitely seemed more ruthlessly commercialised than ever before.
The racism participants were subjected to was the worst part for me (though I understand teams were treated very well by the local population). Hydration breaks. Incessant celebrity spotting. So many small details reminding you that US capitalism might already have succeeded in ruining the game you love. Or that they see the success of the tournament as a signal to ramp up the attacks on European club football (pushing for a franchise model).
I feel like how I imagine golfers felt once LIV golf was announced.
Maybe the way that Infantino nakedly advanced political favors for Trump (the f×××ing peace prize, Folarin f×××ing Balogun) and now wants a fat slice of payback?
I'm sorry, but this is an incredibly silly comment. The "shit show" was systemic at the strategic level. Of course, people who went to see a game had a good time, the "shit show" is at the competition level.
- 48 teams is too much. 32 is a great sweet spot. 48 is ridiculous, it genuinely felt like too many games.
- The completely inconsistent application of VAR was scandalous. I've always been a huge opponent of VAR in soccer, and I really feel vindicated. It felt like it was only used for very pointed decisions. Either you use VAR to make no mistakes at all, or you don't use it.
- The "h2o breaks" were stupid as f. They were clearly only implemented to fit in more commercial breaks.
- as usual, getting the tickets is always a nightmare, but it's been like that for 20+ years
There was some good football, I'm not even bothered by the pre/mid-game shows. There were a lot of good things, but honestly it did feel like it was in spite of everything that was done to make it unbearable.
How and when VAR should be applied is an ongoing contentious discussion not exclusive to the World Cup.
I actually loved the 48 teams. It will probably expand to 64 next cup. More people tune in, nice surprises, upsets, cinderella stories.
Access and price of tickets has been a problem for a long time and getting worse for every live event. Not exclusive to the World Cup.
There are obviously things to improve but the game and experience for people watching and attending was pretty amazing. Leaving in the US I ve had fantastic interactions with strangers everywhere for weeks.
If that’s what a “shit show” is I’m looking forward to more ha ha
I say let the coaches have the right to initiate a VAR review. They inform an official they want a certain moment/decision/action reviewed. As long as the review gets resolved in their favor, they can keep invoking VAR. This would disincentivize review spamming, disrupting play. If there are too many VAR calls in a game, you can squarely blame the ref.
Coaches get in the face of the officials already anyway. This just gives the action a chance at being productive rather than an opportunity to get a red card.
Yes, this is based on the derided review system of Olympic Taekwondo. It's horrible in a fight sport but football is a ball game; somebody tell Paredes and Paraguay please.
And corporate UX/Design teams are eager to modernize those cards; yes they're already flat, but canary yellow is so last century and some glass effects or abolishing the rounded corners will be the next thing.
In the local minor league hockey games near me the power play (the man advantage resulting from a penalty) is usually sponsored by an electric company. The announcers say things like "..and with that cross-check they're on a TXU Energy Power Play!"
“Looks like this is a card. He already has a yellow (sponsored by Qatar Airwaves), and may be looking at his second. YES! he is receiving is second yellow, this time sponsored by Universal Studio, and here is the red card. Sponsored by Red Bull. He is leaving this game and his team mates one down.”
Second commentator: “It is true, Red Bull gives you wings. In this case, the wings only take you to the shower room.”
I follow a local team and don’t really follow the larger picture, but injuries are sponsored, i always thought that would produce a perverse incentive.
EDIT: not sure why i’m getting downvoted, they post up the injured player on the screens with a private medical company prominently displayed.
I think the mandatory ad break introduced by FIFA at the World Cup was also too much for most football people, not just fans. Changed too much, broke the dynamics, basically the sport became a game of 4 quarters instead of 2 halves. These two things combined together are just over the top and unacceptable (UEFA already said they won't use these mandatory ad breaks anywhere)
This is the closest where I can see a future where we have a rugby union / rugby league like schism.
Of all the things wrong with the World Cup, the most inconsequential ones - hydration breaks and the final half-time show - have attracted the most griping.
Changing the pauses of the game alters the momentum and, as consequence, the results. How is that “inconsequential”? There have been cases of corrupted referees before, but violating the Laws of the Game in plain sight is an unprecedented attack on the sport.
I think hydration breaks can be defensible as long as they are a) conditionally triggered by pre-existing criteria that is b) created by an honest assessment of player welfare independent of economic considerations.
I can't say I think the halftime show is a big deal at all though.
Given how the world is heating up and weather is getting more extreme, I think there has to be space for player welfare. That doesn't mean there aren't options for how to implement these things, but I don't think adding 2x 3-minute hydration break (for instance) transforms football into some unrecognizable bastardized version of itself provided the impetus is health and safety vs. economics.
Every rule in sports is arbitrary, that's not an argument. If you want to do it properly, ask about the spirit of the game, not the laws - and there's clearly a conflict there.
The rulebook says the duration of half-time must be specified in competition rules and can be altered if the referee allows it.
"Players are entitled to an interval at half-time, not exceeding 15 minutes; a short drinks break (which should not exceed one minute) is permitted at the interval of half-time in extra time. Competition rules must state the duration of the half-time interval and it may be altered only with the referee’s permission."
You could argue that that this rule allows referees to extend the half-time break.
I can agree that it definitely makes it a different game/playstyle but I'm still not sure if it's guaranteed worse. Putting ads during the break is obviously bad and a cash grab but from a gameplay perspective, it's not clear that a short break during the half is necessarily worse.
I don't mean to be disrespectful but this is a dumb statement. Do you think splitting each half in 2 quarters doesn't have an impact on how the game is played?
Everything has an impact on how the game is played. For example Mexico played their games at 6000 feet above sea level, giving them a big advantage. Even the ball moves differently in thinner air.
At least with hydration breaks, everyone got them and they were the same for everyone. I know sports fans don't like change. If everything else about this WC was perfect I'd say "Fine, go ahead, complain". But this is the tiniest, most meaningless thing to moan about nearly 3 weeks after the tournament is done.
Introducing a break for the sole purpose of more advertising time and therefore trying to extract more value from me as a consumer, is a huge issue. Probably no.1 systemic issue of our time, where on every corner and for every breathing moment someone is optimizing to extract ever more value from others. It is incessant and never stopping.
It's exactly what enshitification is, people accepting these type of small changes and thinking it's not a big deal.
So no, it's not a tiny issue. Compared to this Balogun red card is a tiny issue.
I don't know one single non american who enjoyed that ludicrous display of a half time show. And don't get me started on mr scientology giving a stupid speech. oh my god.
Disrupting the pace of the game twice as many times, oftenly during critical moments is inconsequential to you? You don't sound like quite a sports person.
By this reasoning, are regular football fans really "sports people?" They tolerate wildly inconsistent officiating and diving (and other forms of unsportsmanlike conduct) that occur at every level of the game. Disrupting the pace would be the least of my worries.
the mandatory ad breaks were usa-level bullshit that never happened before, not even when they were playing in the fucking desert (and that world cup should have been boycotted too, but for different reasons.)
a few years ago when the momentum was moving towards tennis, some european clubs proposed a "super league" comprising of only the elite teams, the purpose was again to maximize ad profits (and i should go back to check who actually proposed it, who they were affiliated with). That time they were suggested not to proceed, or else they would be boycotted from all other events, the players too. That was also a good decision.
football (not handegg) it already corrupt enough as it is, and too much money is flowing into it, it's incredible and heart warming that there is still some dignity left in the associations.
Why would non-fans even care? It was a 3 minute break, non-fans would not have any idea that you were going for 2 halves to 4 "quarters". I think this is the kind of thing purists care about but most people don't, most don't even know it is new.
I'm most certainly not a football fan, but I definitely know that a match consists of two 45 minute (and then some) halves. It's pretty much equivalent to a non motor enthusiast knowing that there are usually four wheels on a car.
I'd say this is very, very common knowledge in huge parts of the world. It's not something only enthusiasts and purists know.
Sure, but they aren't leaving the field. There are plenty of stoppages in game already which take as much time. In that sense it's nothing new. Do non-fans view it as changing to 4 "quarters"? I'm not sure most people would care. This is what I mean it's the kind of thing that football purists care about but it's a very small thing.
The breaks change the game more than you’d think, especially when the coach gets to have a strategy session with the whole team. Completely changed the momentum in several games.
I don't know... I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're from a country where football isn't very popular. I don't think you realize just how many fans there are. How utterly ingrained it is in the culture of many countries. "non-fans" make up a minuscule minority of the population of at least Europe, and as far as I understand it South America and parts of Africa too. Not sure about Asia (varies wildly between countries, I suppose), but according to [0] it's estimated that about 3.5 billion people are considered football fans.
This is certainly something many people I know have cared a lot about - and again, I'm not a football enthusiast myself, but still the vast majority of the people I know are, because, not being one really is an outlier.
> There are plenty of stoppages in game already which take as much time.
Well. Not really. And those "stoppages" are part of the game. Actually watching the players quarrel with the referee and whatnot is something football fans want to do. It's not comparable.
> non-fans would not have any idea that you were going for 2 halves to 4 "quarters"
… By non-fans do you mean people who have literally never heard of football, or something? I’m very far from a fan, no interest at all. But, I mean, I know there are two halves. Everybody knows that.
There still are 2 halves. Framing it as quarters is the entire thing. There are numerous things throughout a game which will cause the game to be paused just as long, which is why there is stoppage time.
except during that time players aren’t huddling around the manager and the rest of the coaching staff. all of whom have their ipads out to discuss stats breakdowns and instruct players on changing tactics and strategies.
that’s what effectively made the hydration breaks turn it into a game of four quarters. lost count of the number of times teams completely changed their strategy after the breaks and went on to score goals etc.
you make the players drink the water from the centre of the field with no coaching staff present then it would have less of an impact. but there’s still an impact as all players can huddle together and discuss things together in a way they normally wouldn’t be able to without a severe stoppage ie a delay going on 5-10+ minutes, which is usually rare.
Europe is full of people who are not fans, but will still hear all about the games when their country plays, because it's basically impossible to avoid. Chat groups, work banter, waiting rooms, everybody will be talking about it ALL THE TIME. There is a base level of knowledge for the sport everybody shares. Maybe it's the same with American Football in the US? As a European, I still have no idea what that is even remotely about.
A game having two main uninterrupted halves is one of those foundational facts. Players train for being able to play for that long without getting too thirsty to continue.
In almost every part of the world, all people know some basic things about football (and I do mean the one where you kick a ball with the foot), like it has two halves of 45 minutes.
The original post mentioned people that weren't fans, though. Who are we talking about that are "football people" but not fans. I'm not trying to be dense, I just don't know which audience this is.
USA is the exception here. In most countries, even people who are not football fans are pretty aware of how it works.
I don't often watch football outside the world cup. I don't support any teams. But I know how football is meant to be played, and I was definitely annoyed about the hydration breaks.
Does USA have people that don't follow american football but will watch the Superbowl? Would those people notice if there were three times as many breaks as usual?
> Does USA have people that don't follow american football but will watch the Superbowl? Would those people notice if there were three times as many breaks as usual?
Well...many if not most of the people who don't follow NFL and watch the Super Bowl are watching it for the half time show and ads, so more breaks would make them happy, heh.
Look, most people around the world are not full time fans and only tune to the national final in their country or the world cup. But in any country where soccer is popular, the basic rules are something everyone knows from kindergarten.
It's the same way that Americans know what pitchers, catchers, and batters are in baseball even if they've never picked up a bat or a glove and only go to baseball games to eat hot dogs and get drunk on overpriced beer. Soccer has two halves like baseball has nine innings,a nd the vast majority of people do not want to mess with that.
A secondary reason that they don't want to mess with it is the perception that these hydration breaks are not organic (because it's always been acceptable for players to grab a drink fo water and there are ample opportunities to do so during a regular game), but that the breaks were imposed on the game to facilitate ad breaks in American TV broadcasts. Much of the world is tired of doing things differently just because the Americans want it.
It's still two halves there is just another short stoppage time in which players stay on the field, the same as every foul, goal, and variety of other timing based decisions in football.
Why don't you just say: I know nothing about football ( and I dont care much), please enlighten me?
- Football is not a game of easy scoring, often you have to build momentum, by relentlessly putting pressure on the other team. It's more important than in other sports, because in football a weaker team can easily earn a draw against a stronger team if the later fails to do just that.
Your attacks ( and defense efforts) must compound. It's almost like building a narrative inside the head of the players and inside the head of the spectators before a goal gives everyone a release one way or the other.
Moreso than in other sports where you have a lot of scoring happening. Football is closer to watching an epic drama.
Now it's true that dynamics can change on a dime. But you often have to earn that change ( like by having a skilled player who attracts fouls ).
Having regular breaks makes it almost like watching another sport.
- In most of Europe and South America even people who don't watch regular league games have an intuitive expectation of how a game should be played. And they care.
Especially when it comes to national teams because it's often a big part of the national lore. ( It's like the offside rule. Even people who despise the game end up being experts )
I wouldn’t know, I haven’t watched a single football match since 2018. As for short stoppage time, football use to have much less than, say, rugby. Was it different this year?
It's ok - who cares about Europe anyway, they will be irrelevant imminently.
How about they create a new national league in the US, say called the National Football League and sell that to commercial interests then whoever wins that they can declare the best team in the world and therefore it is the world cup.
I secretly hope that Infantino goes ahead with it anyway. UEFA and others will form something new. Something that replaces the incredibly broken and corrupted FIFA with a de-facto and de-jure non-profit governing body.
Then you would have two corrupt organizing bodies.
Something similar happened with FIDE (chess) in the Kasparov years. I believe FIDE is still headquartered in a dodgy dictatorship in Central-asia-stan.
And I've lost count how many global boxing organizations there are, seemingly in competition with each other to minimize sporting legitimacy and financial transparency.
The same UEFA that added redundant matches and teams to the Champions League for money, and that came up with the Nations League because they wanted to extract more money from the national teams?
While I agree the extra CL games are not a great idea, they are not a very bad one either.
The Nations League is a good idea, for a number of reasons:
1. It gives smaller teams, like Gibraltar, Malta etc, a chance to play competitive football against teams their level and a chance to actually get better. In the old system, the only way for Gibraltar to play a competitive game, was to play in the Euro or WC qualifications, against the likes of Germany, Spain, England etc and get trashed. They can't get better if they have no chance to win.
2. Nations League brings money to the various FAs, a google search suggests anything between €750,000 to €10.5 million, as opposed to extracting money from the FAs.
3. The Nations League games replaced a bunch of friendlies. Now those games matter.
The Super League was decidedly not UEFA's - UEFA even announced sanctions against the organisers (though I think those were repealed by a court), because it was going to compete with UEFA's leagues.
When I first came here 15 years ago it was always more about "Bay Area Startup News" than Hacker News, it has definitely always had a heavy capitalist slant. I'd go as far as to say it has more anti-capitalist sentiment now than it ever has had before.
Not what I remember - we had TechCrunch for that. Hacker News was for hacking - we used to flood the front page with Erlang articles whenever things went off track.
Also pro/anti capitalism isn’t the issue - narrow mindedness and a lack or empathy is.
Founders who used to post on HN are no longer here. (They are on bookface.)
There has been an increase in anti-capitalist sentiment on this orange site in over a decade. But in 2026, the majority here (mostly in Europe) are always upset when they need to pay for their tools.
"Open source" is the biggest excuse for developers and some HNers to never pay for anything. This appears to be unique in this industry.
I find it perturbing that one completely corrupt organization haggles with another completely corrupt organization using some moral arguments. It is just missing the Olympic Committee to complete the podium of corruption.
On top of that these organizations explain how doping is bad and in the case of the Olympic Organization - that there is some kind of amateurism expected from the participants.
We want sport to be exciting so since these people are completely specialized, we should let anyone use what they want (on their bodies and in terms of equipment). It is a commercial entity anyway, intended to bring recreation to people.
I think motorsports is going to fade away over time. Especially in car racing the technology got so advanced, that it's starting to get more and more boring.
If/When self driving cars become widely available, it might start to feel absurd and artificial.
I used to watch most F1 races as a kid. But it just doesn't feel interesting anymore.
Good calls. Honestly, the last World Cup already had way too many unwatchable matches before the quarterfinals. And the hydration pauses to sell more ads. And that halftime show during the final.
I don't follow any sport, but I actually don't understand why UEFA and FIFA are non-profits when all the American leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL) are for-profit corporations. It seems to work well in America.
Does it? Who does it work out well for? Franchises continuously extort tax-payer funds for stadia,some team switches host cities every few years, and the for-profit corporations are legal cartels that decides who gets to own a team. The number of ad-breaks is horrendous to anyone who's watched sports elsewhere.
"Use tax money to build us a new stadium, or we will relocate to Vegas. Do you want to be known by the voters as the governor who gave up our beloved sportsball team? No? Then better pay up."
Because they were designed to be decentralised federations, atop the footballing body in each country. More generally, the US is the most capitalist country, whereas the rest of the world does automatically see capitalism as justified, superior or inevitable.
Lastly, football is a grassroots participation sport that is seen by its fans as more of a religion than a conventional act of entertainment. Of course, religion in the US is also often for-profit, but hopefully you get the point.
MLB & NFL only changed to for-profit organisations somewhat recently (2007, 2015). afaict NBA has always been for-profit.
Internationally the standard is non-profits. Most sports have both their international organisations and highest standard of play organisations as non-profits - football, tennis, golf, cricket. The international components of baseball, american football, and basketball are all non-profits (though they are lower standards of play than the US internal leagues).
I actually like FIFA's plan. FIFA is distributing money back to the the associations...ALL ASSOCIATIONS...and lots of money. Infantino has really poured money into minority (less wealthy) associations across the world. No wonder we got Cape Verde and its glory!
I want to know what kind of outcomes were put forward in front of him, because otherwise he looks like the biggest fool of the decade (a rich one at that).
Wow!
Goes off to have Claude look at the FIFA governance charter. This guy is so done!
I don't think it's about the legacy of football and blah. UEFA (Europe) may be left out of deals, that's about this reaction. They don't give a shit about sport and people. There are more important issues in the world right now than football; does any big organization stand up and call for these actions to stop? Millionaires complaining about other millionaires.
"How unfair, my neighbor has more slaves than me" (ancient Greece)
So, how many countries will be left to participate in these competitions if FIFA doesn't change course? What about if even more national associations from non-European countries get involved?
Because in the 2026 world cup, every single team except Argentina in the quarter-finals onwards was a member of UEFA. And even in the earlier rounds, it was probably like 50 or so percent of them...
If neither side backs down before 2030, you may as well just call off the next World Cup. Especially given that two out of three hosts would also not be participating...
If you look at the points per game, Conmebol was the top achiever with 1.77 points per match. Then UEFA (1.76) then Concacaf (1.21), CAF (1.07), AFC (0.66) and OFC (0.33)
Please note that penalty shoots are considered a draw.
If we are considering performance alone, Conmebol and UEFA should get more spots.
Football/soccer is one place where Europe can easily flex their muscles against American capitalism and corruption. Good on them for saying it loud and clear.
I'm not convinced. There's plenty of large clubs in Europe owned by foreign capital and those clubs have already tried to push a pan-European league for themselves. I can see the FIFA using those teams as leverage to gain a foothold in Europe without UEFA.
* e.g. Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Paris SG, AC Milan and Inter Milan -- in Spain, individual clubs can't be owned by private equity but the La Liga corporation is)
> The moment external investors acquire ownership interests in FIFA competitions, football changes forever. Commercial return becomes a permanent obligation. Investor expectations become a daily pressure.
If only we recognized the evil of this in more areas of society. Those obligations and pressures have already corrupted so much of our world. It would be nice if we could expunge them from more than just a game.
Yes, but isn't football already overly commercialised? Why is advertising for sports betting or alcohol any better than the FIFA issue? UEFA should take a look at itself, too.
UEFA's reach affects the remaining 3/10 and beyond. Nearly the same fraction of world cup players (68%) earn their livelihoods playing for European league teams- including many players representing non-European countries at the World Cup.
FIFA made ludicrous amounts of money as a non profit running the last World Cup and want to transition to a for profit corporation to make even more.
UEFA representing the European nations with the most competitive teams and many of the biggest stars, just told them good luck running a World Cup without us.
Right, IIRC they basically banned everybody in Trinidad from FIFA and relocated the HQ.
It didn't help that Chuck Blazer just looked like a pedophile. Not sure if it's a coincidence that he lived in Trump tower. He had two apartments there, one for his cats.
like so many corrupt organizations lately, FIFA has been getting away with it for a long time and they overplayed their hand. this was a long time coming and i'm really glad to see it.
The FA's worldwide don't need FIFA, they can set up a new world tournament. You will get a lot of poor nations who stick with FIFA for the cash but at the end of the day without European teams the world cup and FIFA will have minimal value. 5 of the last 6 world cup winners were european and it will only get more biased towards Europe. Argentina post Messi have no chance, and Brazil are the furthest away from winning than they ever have been.
Spain have a far more youthful side, who can easily win again. France will come back, as will England. Argentina have few players coming through and many stars will have retired by the next tournament, even youthful Alvarez will be 30 next time out.
You said they have no chance, and maybe that's true for the next world cup, but Argentina is a factory of top players across all leagues, and the Argentina team has been to 7 World Cup finals, winning 3, and 6 of those were since 1978 (so out of 13 world cups, Argentina was a finalist in 6, and won half of those), and except 2002, Argentina always reaches knockout stages and beyond.
FAs coming together and creating a new FIFA will just mean you get another organization that is exactly as corruption-ridden as FIFA. There's no point starting fresh if you don't fix the underlying problem.
Here's a look at FIFA's finances, "Where the money comes from and where it goes". I've always wondered where the billions go (and for the Olympics too):
Greed is ruining football. Granted, this happened before that
already, we also saw this in olympics in general - but FIFA
now pushed this onto a new level. This is trying to leech off
of people now. After all, without people there would be no FIFA.
They are leeching here.
International companies and institutions parking their money in Switzerland genuinely have as much to do with Europe as Russian Oligarchs in London have with the United Kingdom. The country's always been a financial haven for oligarchs, it doesn't tell you much about the rest of the continent.
Infantino who seems to oscillate between Qatar and Switzerland I assume has a rather strenuous connection to the rest of Europe
I find the UEFA standpoint a little disingenuous since commercial interests have been a top priority in football (soccer) for decades. Claiming that allowing investors to participate will hurt the sport are at the very least a misrepresentation of the current situation.
Although I disagree with his methods and goals I enjoy watching the way Infantino uses power play to stack the cards in his favor.
The only way for the UEFA to reclaim authority would be to demand two-thirds voting rights. The model of "one country, one vote" clearly works to UEFA's disadvantage even though its clubs contribute the majority of FIFA's income.
The super league wasn't UEFA's doing at all. The top clubs themselves tried to break away and self-organize, and they ultimately won some concessions from UEFA (new CL format, more CL money to the big teams)
According to aljazeera's article, "the core investor would be a New York venture capital investment firm created by Joshua Kushner, the brother of US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner."
FIFA is just upholding western values. Profit, exploitation and money over everything else. They with FIA and likes are just showing the world what truly matters for western world.
Why is this out of the gate bad? Note that this is not taking FIFA to private equity, but creating an investors owned subsidiary to run events and commercial operations where the non profit arm will still own 80% of it. With the right protections it could help FIFA make more money and reinvest in the sport, particularly women’s football. FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA. Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.
Why is it bad to sell 20% of the biggest tournament in the world to a private company lead by people involved with the most corrupt administration in the history of the US? The model has been working fine for decades, why does it matter that it makes less than american sports?
Ha! Model has been working for American s.. more and more we are seeing signs of a falling empire. Not reading the room - I mean global - temperature is nothing new to the US foreign policy office. They’ve done it for decades, but these days the confidence in leadership has fully eroded trust. Before there may have been closed door jokes made US leaderships expense, now it’s out and in public.
Market Strategists are going to study this one. It’s a potential inflection point. Cant think of any other event or entity as globally galvanizing that football.
The most beloved, most watched sport in the world making less than the American/Canadian hockey league is a commercial failure. Non profits are generally inefficient at running businesses. With the right guardrails a private arm that knows how to run a business could help FIFA make a ton of money. And yes a lot of rich guys will become even richer too, so what?
But FIFA is the governing body of a sport, not a business.
Hearing you say this is like hearing someone say that the United Nations is a commercial failure.
Its purpose is to regulate and administer international football on behalf of its member associations, enforce compliance with its regulations, organise international competitions to relieve the member associations of the hassle, administer anti-doping programmes and related integrity measures (lol), and, through its membership of IFAB, help determine and promote the consistent application of the Laws of the Game worldwide. Its revenues only exist to support those functions.
Is there a need for it to have profit motive? Would the world be better if it decided it should have one? I don't see how the answer could be yes to either question.
The mention of guardrails is a little Onion-esque given the organisation and people in question
The UN is a poor analogy. The UN does not operate a large commercial business like FIFA which exploits the World Cup, Libertadores and other events. The only strong similarity they have is their non profit status. You should have used the IOC as analogy.
> The most beloved, most watched sport in the world making less than the American/Canadian hockey league is a commercial failure.
Fortunately the English top division alone makes a similar amount to NHL (from a quarter of the matches) and the English second tier makes a similar amount to the Super Bowl[1], which is why football's governing body doesn't particularly need lessons on how to commercialize stuff from people in the United States who probably also don't understand football's financial centre of gravity, but will happily buy commercialization rights for a quadrennial tournament if sold to them in a backroom deal at a sufficiently low price...
[1]yes, I know the Super Bowl is only the one game. But if you can compare a 1400 game annual league to a 104 game quadrennial tournament, then I can compare an entire season to a single big game :D)...
FIFA controls the largest event, so it should be the driving force for revenue but it’s not. But even if you add UEFA the whole thing still less profitable than an American professional and barely surpasses hockey. By the way, UEFA crying about this while they are the owners, regulators and revenue distributors is pretty crazy. It seems to me they are more concerned about not being able to hop on the FIFA deal themselves.
Do you not understand that FIFA and UEFA are a small component of the actual revenue of football? They are not all of football. This is not complicated.
You are comparing apple and oranges, it makes no sense.
> Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.
Soccer makes much much more money than the NHL, it just doesn't all go to FIFA because the vast majority of matches are not organized by FIFA.
The premier league alone makes more than the NHL and that's just one of the european countries. La ligua, bundesliga also each make close to what the NHL makes with much smaller populations.
The fair comparison to FIFA is the IIHF. They make $35M for the hockey world championships vs 15B for the football world cup, you are slightly off, a rounding error.
> FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA.
FIFA holds one significant money-making tournament for a month every 4 years (all due respect to the Women's World Cup in terms of prestige, but its revenue is a small fraction of the Men's World Cup). The NHL runs 6 months a year annually.
Closer to 10 months actually - Oct (Sept if you include the pre-season) through June.
But just to add on for comparison, the NHL has 1312 regular season games. Plus 4 rounds of best-of-7 playoff series with 16 teams making the playoffs. Let's say an average of 5.75 games per round, that's 86 playoff games bringing us to ~1400 games per year.
Over 4 years, that's 5600 games. The FIFA World Cup had 104 games this year. It's actually pretty impressive that the WC can even make 40% while hosting < 2% of the games that the NHL has. Or put another way, 1 WC game is equivalent to 54 NHL games - 2/3 of one team's full regular season.
That’s part of their poor commercial vision. Even the World Cup brings less revenue than one season of the NBA. Doesn’t even make sense to compare it with the NFL.
Again, it doesn't last as long as one season of the NBA or play as many games.
A single NBA season has over 1200 games - over 12 times as many games as the most recent World Cup (104). And that was already the largest-ever WC. Does the NBA have 12x the revenue of the WC?
> Even the World Cup brings less revenue than one season of the NBA
This isn't even true btw. The 2026 WC made $15b and the 2025-26 NBA season made $14.3 billion. [1][2]
Most of the WC's participating teams represent places poorer than the places NBA teams hail from.
You can't run the World Cup like the NBA. That's not how the sport works.
The Qatar World Cup tournament was obviously such a thing. The place had the money to build all the stadiums, but has never qualified legitimately and is a tiny country. Thousands of people died building those stadiums in Qatar.
Plus there is advertising all over the players' clothing, the pitch, the pitchside hoardings etc. There is high rent advertising in every break. Even more so since theze silly hydration breaks.
I mean, of course you're right about all of that. (The Qatar world cup was more for 'sportswashing' than extracting profit, although FIFA itself still made plenty of money. And, the hydration breaks will hopefully be a thing of a the past, because it was so obvious what they were really for. But I'm not betting on that.)
It just sucks that everything good and sacred in the world (soccer and everything else) is being squeezed and shittified for profit. So if FIFA is prevented from converting from a non-profit with the nominal purpose of being a steward of the game for its own stake into a fully explicit for-profit capitalistic enterprise, then I'll take the victory. Even if the current system is far from perfect.
Football has had a major profiteering issue since at least the 1970s. The clubs always had to support themselves, but since then you have advertising everywhere, footballers in moronic adverts themselves, broadcasting rights, players being paid (and being worth) obscene amounts of money...
In recent years, there has been a clear movement away from the physical fanbase towards merchandise and broadcasting. It often feels like clubs are embarrassed by the people who turn up at games (sometimes with good reason to be fair since some of the fan behaviour and chants are indefensible).
don't be naive. Never in the history of humanity did corrupt billionaire pedophiles do anything help the sport/fans/women/..... They want a piece to get the foot in the door. 10 years from now, we wont even recognise football anymore.
I don't care what american billionaires make with nhl/nfl/..., hands fucking off of football.
Association football is more marketable than certain North American sports. For a start, the jerseys are covered in sponsors, even the shorts, socks and shoes. American football and basketball, for whatever reason, haven't done that yet.
It looks like this world cup may have introduced shirt sponsorship to US and Canadian sports. Soon their shirts will resemble Formula One drivers'. In return, association football will keep hydration breaks etc.
Cue UEFA's leadership being replaced in the next year or two. FIFA has had a taste of the amount of money involved in professional sports. There's no going back.
50 of the 55 member UEFA states took the floor to express their outrage at FIFA, this is not a matter of UEFA leadership being out of touch. The vast majority of the confederation is ready to walk.
I understand that this is a principled stand by UEFA, no doubt about it. But the amount of money in the offering is too large for the clubs (and their superstars) to snub their noses at it. When it comes down to money, principles are the first to be bought and sold.
I don't think you do understand, because the nation associations involved (not clubs) have resoundingly rejected this plan. First UEFA has announced their complete boycott, now CONCACAF has rejected it. This is DOA and Infantino just gave the delegation a huge reason to run a candidate against him in the upcoming elections.
FIFA has been spectacularly corrupt since at least thd 1970s, and UEFA is not far behind.
When Blatter was kicked out of FIFA for corruption, the USA provided a legal venue for the investigation. Between Infantino and Trump you would think that is off the table.
The problem with that is that it then it is no longer a sport, rather a... business.
UEFA letter is spot on.
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