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Which is clearly not enough.
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.
A private company answers only to shareholders.
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 futur…
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.
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…
Somewhere in this fetid swamp of corruption, you just know the trump crime syndicate has its greasy hands on the pie.
It's crazy that as despicable an organization as UEFA is, they're still far better than FIFA. Infantino has been a disgrace, I hope they manage to get rid of him, but I have very little hope.
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.
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.
This is a joke, right? I can’t think of any league as blatantly corrupt as FIFA on any level.
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What's new? I thought it has been known as a big-money thing for some time now.
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.
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.
That's your "optimization".
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.
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.
Expect some kind of back door deal.
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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 d…
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.
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Sports people (I was listening to Bill Simmons) rated it pretty highly. There was nothing egregious and it was widely attended.
The World Cup final is supposed to be a war and the half time show turned it into a clown fest.
Now if only it had been a good half-time show...