This statement is weak and wishy-washy compared to the blunt UEFA statement. Kudos to Europe. Here’s hoping CONCACAF can get brave enough to take the moral stance as well.

I 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.

Who told you that? FIFA?

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 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.

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.

I 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.

The difference that FIFA ran the whole tournament now. There was no Local Organizing Committee (LOC) like with every single previous event.

> 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".

Instead of just various penis challenged nation leaders doing so...