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≡ FIFA WORLD CUP 2026 ≡
Finally the second half of our review of the FIFA World Cup, with lessons from no. 5 to no. 1. The lessons from 10-6 are here.
For starters, I am not much of a football (soccer) fan. Club football has no interest for me, whether the European leagues or Major League Soccer in the U.S. But the World Cup is different and always has been because of its focus on national teams and all that goes along with national teams.
So I watched at least 96 full matches out of 104 and some minutes from six others, and saw a tournament that has to be evaluated in two ways: the football itself, and FIFA as sole organizer. In the end, the tournament was terrific; FIFA, less so. On with the lessons.
5. Nationalism stirred the World Cup drink
Unlike the Olympic Games, which has dozens of sports going on all the time across two weeks, the World Cup has a country’s team playing in one place at one time, several days apart. So their fans are fully ready to support-follow-party down for their boys.
And with football the world’s most popular sport, that makes the World Cup a showcase if nations. As if we could forget:
● Scotland’s “Tartan Army” on the march … to the games and the Boston bars!
● Norway’s unforgettable “Viking row,” even in New York’s Times Square
● Japanese fans cleaning up their seating area after each match
● Croatia’s fan march in Toronto carrying a 100 m-long flag!
● Fan marches by the Dutch, Portuguese and many others
For the most part, these showcases of national culture went on without incident. American, Canadian and Mexican hosts saw people and things in person they had never seen before. And the visitors experienced the host countries. The fans were the stars.
Story after story recounted how foreign visitors found the hosts to be much different than seen on their home news channels. They were astonished by things like free soda refills, ranch dressing (really?) and the size of things in the U.S., whether portion sizes in restaurants or in visiting a Costco or Wal-Mart for the first time.
These are the good things about an event like a World Cup or an Olympic Games, because people learn about other places by seeing them first-hand, not as someone else wants them to see it. It’s the good side of nationalism, that sends people to meet each other through the medium of football/soccer. This was marvelous and will have long-lasting impacts.
4. FIFA decided it wanted to be the NFL for a month
As seen by its predatory approach to extracting money from host countries, cities and fans (more on this below), making money was a prime concern for FIFA during the 2026 World Cup.
Never mind its status as a non-profit organization, FIFA looked to the most financially-successful league in the world – the National Football League – and incorporated every element it could think of into the mostly-U.S.-hosted World Cup in 2026. We saw:
● Hydration breaks creating a “four-quarter” game
● Expanded halftime – 27 minutes – with a show at the final
● Ticketed stadium tours on non-match days, from $54-90
● Showing your name pre-game on a stadium scoreboard, for $79
● Selling fan seats at a pre-Final “press conference” at $80 apiece
● Pieces of the field from the final, from $450 to $3,000
● Championship rings for the winners … also sold to fans for $12,000 each
FIFA had already adopted the NFL practice of referees announcing video review decisions to the crowd and added “referee cams” as well for 2026.
All of this to inflate FIFA’s quadrennial revenue to a record $15 billion for 2023-26. However, FIFA has a ways to go to get close to the NFL, which did a reported $23 billion in revenue just for its single fiscal year of 2024-25.
While the NFL made FIFA’s success possible – as noted previously – as all 11 of the U.S. host venue were NFL stadiums, FIFA President Gianni Infantino (SUI) came in for considerable scorn for his fawning relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, including the review on request of the red card handed to U.S. striker Falorin Balogun.
Even the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell have not gone that route.
3. FIFA’s predatory approach to host communities
The sales pitch to host countries for the FIFA World Cup is fairly simple: whatever costs you have will be more than repaid by the tsunami of visitors from foreign countries who will shower you with spending during the event, creating millions in economic benefit and tax revenue.
The Canadian Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported in May:
“Based on the most recent information, PBO estimates total government support to co-host the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup to be $1,066 million, of which federal support will be $473 million, with the remainder of $593 million funded by other levels of government.
“Because Canada will be hosting 13 games, the estimated cost per game is $82 million.”
On the date of publication, the Canadian dollar was worth $0.73 U.S., so the C$1.066 billion is U.S. $775.52 million, for 13 matches, in Toronto and Vancouver. That’s C$82 million – about $59.6 million U.S. – per match, shared between the national and local governments.
The costs were primarily for stadium modifications and renovations and security and transportation support. No national post-event report has been circulated, but the payments processor Moneris said that in the Toronto area, the World Cup “paled in comparison” to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, on six dates in November 2024.
Importantly, all host communities had limited – if any – opportunities for corporate sponsorships as FIFA’s own commercial interests blocked any real local-area marketing operation, leaving only donations.
In Mexico, the Mexican Confederation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism said in mid-July that economic impact of the World Cup totaled between 45-50 billion pesos, or about $2.57 to $2.86 billion U.S. It had projected between 65 billion and 200 billion pesos ($3.7 billion to $11.4 billion U.S.) in economic activity.
The tournament impact on Mexican GDP in 2026 will be approximately 0.14% to 0.15%, with hotels showing significant increases in occupancy essentially only on match days.
In the U.S., the figures are still being tallied, but a report on Los Angeles-area hotel occupancy reported slow pre-World Cup bookings, but frantic activity around match days, with hotels hiking their prices significantly to make up for the loss in advance bookings.
These realities are not lost on U.S. cities. Possible U.S. host communities for the 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup have refused to sign on to FIFA’s “standard terms,” with the tournament to be formally assigned at the end of the year. Watch for how these discussions turn out.
Despite all of the economic issues, the 16 host communities generally performed well. There were glitches to be sure, and even some deaths related to the tournament, notably at fan viewing sites. But there was no systemic breakdown or lawlessness and in the U.S., the coordination between national and local law enforcement, with $625 million in Federal funding and legislation to allow more local interdiction of drones worked well. That is a credit to the professionalism of the layers of agencies involved.
2. FIFA’s predatory approach to fans
No one in the U.S. is surprised when the NFL or other leagues sell tickets, merchandise and whatever else they can dream up for crazy prices, as they are for-profit businesses.
FIFA is a non-profit, but took the extraordinary step of not simply introducing “dynamic” ticket pricing for the World Cup – changing with what it perceived as demand – but essentially pricing its tickets based on the expected resale market, not based on any judgement of its own on ticket value.
The result was a financial bonanza for FIFA, as passionate football fans spent and spent to see their team – if they could afford the upcharged tickets and travel – and filled the stadiums to nearly full. A record 6,810,966 attended the expanded, 104-match tournament.
TicketData.com reporting showed the stunning final “get-in” prices for the lowest-cost available tickets:
● $913 for the Group Stage (median price)
● $1,015 for the Round-of-32 (average)
● $1,453 for the Round-of-16 (average)
● $1,188 for the Quarterfinals (average)
● $2,246 for the Semifinals (average)
● $582 for Third Place
● $7,477 for the Final
On top of this was hospitality sales, of course, with more than 500,000 packages sold and more millions in FIFA’s pockets. There were also souvenirs of every kind, to go along with exorbitant parking and concessions at the stadia and some other oddball items noted earlier.
People wanted to see the World Cup, same as they want to see Beyonce or Oasis or Taylor Swift, to the detriment of smaller attractions. But the way FIFA did it was especially brutal, with no apologies from Infantino, who simply said this is the way business is done in the U.S.
Yes, by for-profit acts and companies determined to squeeze out resellers as much as possible, which is what FIFA tried to do (other than for its own resales sites, of course).
It is not over for FIFA, as there are investigations of fraud for its late introduction of “front category” seats late in the sales process, and a series of suits against reseller StubHub over its inability to deliver tickets sold on its site, but which were unable to be delivered. The tournament is over, but the aftermath will be measured in years.
1. It’s still all about Europe
FIFA crowed about how the expansion to 48 teams did nothing to hurt the quality of football that was played at the World Cup, but the reality is that European teams have dominated the recent World Cups and it did again this time. Comparing the make-up of the round-of-16 down to the final four:
Final 16:
Despite all of the great play by smaller countries and that nine of 10 African teams made it to the round-of-32, Europe and South America were once again – as usual – responsible for most of those making a deep run:
● 2026: 7 Europe, 4 South America, 3 CONCACAF, 2 Africa, 0 Asia
● 2022: 8 Europe, 2 South America, 1 CONCACAF, 2 Africa, 3 Asia
● 2018: 10 Europe, 4 South America, 1 CONCACAF, 0 Africa, 1 Asia
● 2014: 6 Europe, 5 South America, 3 CONCACAF, 2 Africa, 0 Asia
● 2010: 6 Europe, 5 South America, 2 CONCACAF, 1 Africa, 2 Asia
Final 8:
● 2026: 6 Europe, 1 South America, 1 Africa
● 2022: 5 Europe, 2 South America, 1 Africa
● 2018: 6 Europe, 2 South America
● 2014: 4 Europe, 3 South America, 1 CONCACAF
● 2010: 4 South America, 3 Europe, 1 Africa
Final 4:
● 2026: 3 Europe, 1 South America
● 2022: 2 Europe, 1 Africa, 1 South America
● 2018: 4 Europe
● 2014: 2 Europe, 2 South America
● 2010: 3 Europe, 1 South America
Europe finished with the winner, third and fourth place and in the playoffs, was 11-5 against non-European teams, including 5-0 in the round of 16. Finalist Argentina beat two European teams – Switzerland and England – accounting for almost half of the wins by non-European squads.
Despite all the claims of parity, Europe reigned supreme, again.
There are a lot more topics to be talked about, of course: the difficult visa situation for some countries trying to access all three host nations – not just the U.S. – plus the sometimes comical but also unending drama with the Iranian team in a time of war with the U.S., overt political messages at some matches, notably Argentina’s “Malvinas” banner after the semifinal, and new technologies in refereeing.
But the tournament was a success, not least of all for European teams and for those from foreign countries who got a chance to see Canada, Mexico and the U.S. up close.
Time will tell, but FIFA may yet regret some aspects of its behavior in its all-out cash grab. Everyone noticed.
Rich Perelman
Editor
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