October 29: America’s sports event and hospitality ticket buyers delivered a third of FIFA’s $15 billion revenue from the 2026 World Cup.
The $5 billion figure was $1.7 billion more than the budgeted $3.3 billion, and despite a number of games, particularly in the group stages, they did not sell out. FIFA, which controlled tickets through its own site, dumped large volumes of unsold tickets into resale markets that held their price values well.
The figure was five times the amount of the previous World Cup in Qatar in 2022 which generated $929 million in ticket and hospitality revenue. There were 40 more matches in 2026 than in 2022 and the number of nations in the finals has been expanded from 32 to 48.
The figures come from a report by The Times citing sources with knowledge of the tournament’s finances. FIFA has not officially confirmed the figure.
“The revenue generated by the tournament will provide unprecedented resources for FIFA’s member associations to invest in the game,” FIFA told The Times.
“As announced this month after the FIFA Council meeting in Zurich, the FIFA administration presented to the FIFA Council a proposal for an initiative called the FIFA Surplus Solidarity Programme, which would use a portion of FIFA’s reserves to more than double the level of funding planned for the period 2027-2030 to $6.35 billion.
“FIFA will publish the revenue generated by the 2026 FIFA World Cup in its next annual report. These figures are subject to the necessary audit processes and as such are not yet available for external disclosure.”
FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, are under pressure to provide greater transparency in all operations and decision-making, including financial information.
Despite the World Cup’s $15 billion generation, primarily from the US market, Infantino had only budgeted $10 million for each member association over the next four-year cycle. After pressure from the presidents of UEFA and Concacaf, Aleksander Ceferin and Victor Montagliani (responding to calls from their own members) argued that there was enough room in FIFA’s reserves to deliver twice that amount to national associations without affecting their activities. FIFA was forced to quickly pivot and propose an increase from $15 million to $25 million per national association over the four-year cycle. This was approved at the FIFA Council meeting earlier this month.
This followed Infantino’s offer of $20 million to the national associations in exchange for the sale of all FIFA commercial rights, including all World Cups in perpetuity, to a new private equity business (FIFA Forward Enterprise – FFE) for $4.2 billion, valuing FIFA’s rights at around $20 billion. A figure that is just 1.25 times the revenue of the 2026 World Cup, or four times the revenue of the ticket and hospitality revenue of the 2026 World Cup.
The private equity backer that Infantino had lined up was Thrive Capital, which has close ties to Infantino’s new best friend, US President Donald Trump. Thrive is run by Josh Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and frequent member of his “peace” and diplomatic missions.
The FFE proposal was quickly abandoned after a worldwide outcry and Infantino has since apologised, but has not proposed any new statutes to prevent FIFA from selling its rights to exploit its commercial revenue. The FFE’s proposal was the second time he had tried to sell FIFA’s commercial rights after a similarly aborted bid to sell to Softbank for $25 billion before his presidency.
Confidence in Infantino’s financial integrity among many of FIFA’s federation members has hit rock bottom, as it has among fan groups and other football stakeholders. The next set of FIFA accounts will be under intense scrutiny.
A world cup only for the rich
Fan groups criticized FIFA for its dynamic ticketing policy for the 2026 World Cup, calling FIFA’s ticketing policy a betrayal and extortion of real football fans who follow their teams and nations all year round but were priced out of the 2026 World Cup.
Certainly the price of the nations’ traveling fans, many of whom would generate more than 100,000 supporters in the country for a major championship, affected the carnival and passionate atmosphere inside the stadiums and cities that one is used to seeing at a World Cup.
Of the 6.81 million tickets, “more than 100,000 tickets for the entire tournament were available at $60, including more than 1,000 for the final,” FIFA told The Times. The reality is that it’s a small amount of the overall proportion of tickets for dedicated fans that would normally pack World Cup stadiums.
FIFA has put the world game beyond the reach of the world in this regard.
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