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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,
by brunoborges 2mo ago
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.
UEFA letter is spot on.
- orangedog 2mo agoWhat's new? I thought it has been known as a big-money thing for some time now.
- skywhopper 2mo agoFIFA has announced they plan to officially sell off everything to private investors, dropping all pretense of being a steward of a common good.
- glitchc 2mo agoFIFA 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.
- haunter 2mo agoThe difference that FIFA ran the whole tournament now. There was no Local Organizing Committee (LOC) like with every single previous event.
- ahartmetz 2mo agoI 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.
- ascagnel_ 2mo agoI 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.
- overfeed 2mo agoI 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.
- glitchc 2mo agoPer-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.
- skywhopper 2mo agoAnd they took a 15% commission on both sides of every aftermarket transaction. I’ve never seen such an overtly avaricious “marketplace”.
- tremon 2mo agoOff in the distance, an app store rings its 30% bell.
- herdrick 2mo agoAbove? I don't know anything about these particular auctions, but how could any auction arrive at a price above market value?
- ginko 2mo agoThat one I can't be too mad about. Better FIFA gets the profits instead of ticket scalpers.
- notahacker 2mo agoThere were 40% more games than the last World Cup, which is a lot of extra broadcast rights and ticket revenues...
- lossolo 2mo ago> 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".
- notahacker 2mo agoYeah, 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...
- throw1234567891 2mo agoSome good thoughts here. I could see a stretching break and maybe a rolling competition between halves.
- jimbokun 2mo agoThe 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.
- javier2 2mo agoFor Infantino, they reckon his salary can go from 6M to 60M under this new org…
- oliwarner 2mo agoThey just made $15bn.
- jimbokun 2mo agoWhich is clearly not enough.
- brunoborges 2mo agoThe 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.
- testdelacc1 2mo agoA nonprofit can be questioned about how it pays people. A private company answers only to shareholders.
- brunoborges 2mo agobingo
- didntknowyou 2mo agoand part of the proposal is to get Fifa to borrow and take on debt lol it's peak capitalism
- jmathai 2mo agoThe experience interacting with FIFA is so terrible already. I can only imagine how much worse it would be if it turned into a profit machine.
- CodingJeebus 2mo agoAgreed, 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.
- curun1r 2mo agoFIFA 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.
- jmathai 2mo agoI 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.
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- seviu 2mo agoFIFA is also a terrible employer Got friends working for them as developers. They ran away. In months
- jackbravo 2mo agoAre you talking about EA or FIFA?
- decimalenough 2mo agoYes.
- skywhopper 2mo agoBased on the quality of their World Cup ticketing website, I’m not surprised. That was the worst ticketing experience I’ve ever endured.
- duxup 2mo agoIt'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.
- ardit33 2mo agoThey also got so greedy that even EA couldn't deal with them anymore and they ended up destroying the Fifa videogame franchise
- tmgldn 2mo agoImagine being more money hungry than EA - a company which makes billions from gaslighting children into gambling money on getting their favourite players.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- lossolo 2mo ago> and many others Trump and Kushners "Joshua Kushner is now the kingpin in driving the sale of the World Cup to investors and family ties are tight around the project"[1] 1. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/30/fifas-sale-of-the-century-how-kushners-and-trump-are-at-centre-of-a-tangled-web https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/30/fifas-sale-...
- outside1234 2mo agoThese people looked at OpenAI and went "Hey, I can run corruption like that too!"
- fHr 2mo agotrue lmao
- hulitu 2mo ago> UEFA They are no strangers to certain aspects of it. /s
- erfgh 2mo agoWhat's wrong with making billions? Will this hurt the game somehow?
- ralfd 2mo agoYes. The game was already hurt this world cup with the flow destroying „hydration breaks“ to sell more ads.
- tommek4077 2mo agoWe've seen the start with "hydration breaks" and a 30 minute half-time.
- mig1 2mo agoInvestors calling to change red cards because the best players should play, etc
- stackghost 2mo agoYes it will hurt the game. Americans already have the NFL if they want to watch commercials. Leave soccer alone.
- didntknowyou 2mo agonothing wrong, but did we really need ticket prices to go from 100 to 1000 if they weren't struggling financially?
- madradavid 2mo agoCONCACAF join UEFA and reject FIFA's World Cup sell-off plan. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49488584/uefa-boycott-all-fifa-competitions-protest-world-cup-private-equity-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...
- conradfr 2mo agoWhile 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...
- runarberg 2mo agoI 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.
- jamesblonde 2mo agoFifa 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.
- runarberg 2mo agoI 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.
- retr0rocket 2mo ago[dead]
- miohtama 2mo agoInfantino should call Altman
- juliusceasar 2mo agoOr Madoff, SBF, Weinstein, etc
- throw1234567891 2mo agoDon’t give them stupid ideas.
- notahacker 2mo agoIt'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...
- dzonga 2mo agoInfantino & Trump are just corrupt. Neck to neck with officials in African governments. Infantino & Trump's corruption is literally driven by greed. not the good greed - but just bad, power hungry insatiable greed.
- TZubiri 2mo agoSeems like this is the era of using NFP to make money through spinoff corporations.
- rapidfl 2mo agothe FIFA branding on the EA game was gone and EA still came out well. So UEFA could learn something from that situation.
- coffeebeanHH 2mo agoFIFA can't act corrupt by definition. They removed this word completely from their codex.