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.

CONCACAF statement: https://www.concacaf.com/competitions/concacaf/news/statemen...

However, all all-Africa World Cup won't find too many takers.

While the football business is horrible it's nice that this may fail like the Super League.

Now if only that could put a dent in Infantino reelection...

> unprecedented amounts of corruption...

Yes I hear about that a lot. Yuk

But I also hear that FIFA puts a lot of resources into developing the game in African countries.

I am asking: Is that true in your experience?

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.

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.

Or Madoff, SBF, Weinstein, etc

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.

Based on the quality of their World Cup ticketing website, I’m not surprised. That was the worst ticketing experience I’ve ever endured.

Are you talking about EA or FIFA?

Imagine being more money hungry than EA - a company which makes billions from gaslighting children into gambling money on getting their favourite players.

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.

Interesting parallels to OpenAI.

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.

FIFA has announced they plan to officially sell off everything to private investors, dropping all pretense of being a steward of a common good.

and part of the proposal is to get Fifa to borrow and take on debt lol it's peak capitalism

Which is clearly not enough.

true lmao

We've seen the start with "hydration breaks" and a 30 minute half-time.

Investors calling to change red cards because the best players should play, etc

Yes.

The game was already hurt this world cup with the flow destroying „hydration breaks“ to sell more ads.

Yes it will hurt the game. Americans already have the NFL if they want to watch commercials. Leave soccer alone.

nothing wrong, but did we really need ticket prices to go from 100 to 1000 if they weren't struggling financially?

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.

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

Trump and his family.

His son in law is running the investment firm https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-fifa-investors-kushner-...

In turn Trump wants to nominate Infantino for Secretary General of UN https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/22/trumps-pick-for-the-next...

Kushner

> 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."

Sepp Blatter for crying out loud.

The companies that want a piece of FIFA, I assume.

Edit: I just realized you meant who here on hn, in which case I assume the hardcore capitalists/libertarians. But they can speak for themselves.

On HN? The capitalist/libertarian/Elon posters, Meta employees, etc.

Cape Verde would have qualified under the 32 team cup as well.

Agreed with both you and parent on the commercial, I mean hydration, breaks. What a disaster.

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.

Why bother? If it’s not a popular sport there already, the viewership wouldn’t be worth the cost

Doesn’t the majority of that go back to the clubs that make it to European competitions though?

Isn't it a non profit too ? But you seem to imply it's going into individual's pockets ?

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.

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.

Qatar may not be a pariah state but it should be.

Russia a pariah state, as opposed to the US. Good thing freedom won and the US was allowed to host.

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.

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.

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).

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).

- 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.

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.

And that 27 min half-time... Seriously ?!

The ticket prices and scalping (sorry, authorized re-selling to find the market clearing price) were robbery.

Sports people (I was listening to Bill Simmons) rated it pretty highly.

There was nothing egregious and it was widely attended.

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 fact a ban was overturned as a political favour.

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.

Hawkeye in GAA games is sponsored by Specsavers.

Because there is no incentive for the players?

Who do you think is incentivized and how does that cause a player to get injured?

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.

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.

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?

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.

The VAR calls 5 minutes after the fact were the most bothersome thing to me

> the most inconsequential ones

This is like saying “customers aren’t worried enough about the corporate process - they only care about the end product!”

There was extensive coverage and discussion of Trump getting the Balogun red card overturned.

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.

> 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.

Why would anyone be in favour of more ad breaks?

Most football non-fans absolutely know that a football match is supposed to be two halves.

I thought I smelled something.

I'm speechless...

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.

> 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.

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).

American sports leagues are also non-profit organizations. Profits go to the individual teams. So no, FIFA should not be run by private equity firms.

Are they? Their revenues are limited and they can’t really extend their influence outside USA. Meanwhile European games are watched globally

...and Infantino was the UEFA secretary under Platini before taking Blatter's place as head of FIFA.

It’s located in Switzerland, but it’s a global organization and has really close ties with the US president

Sorry to be a pedant, while switzerland is in the european landmass, it is not a member of the EU.

You don't understand, good things come from the EU, bad things come from those filthy non-EU Europeans.

Swiss.

What are you on about? FIFA is not a league and certainly not in charge of european football

UEFA is Europe basically. So like the nexus of modern football

An even funnier fact is that players who play for clubs in Europe (UEFA) won't be allowed to represent their countries.

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.

Yes, and when Blatter was investigated for corruption both he and Platini, president of UEFA, were banned.

This was barely 10 years ago, it's not ancient history.

Platini is still suing Infantino now.

And Infantino has been in high leadership in UEFA (not president), then FIFA

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)

To be fair, China and Russia participate in the fantasy.

US values, from the culture of the last 40 years.

We're really going to act like the entire world doesn't have issues with this.

Given this is a worldwide institution dealing with this, I think you are both casting the new too small.

Famously before either the US or Western world, these values were never celebrated.

Welcome. Not a dupe if some time has passed between submissions without much discussion or upvotes. And this is the source.

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?

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.

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.

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.