Dave Davies

For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.

This is Fresh Air.

I'm Dave Davies.

The FIFA World Cup opens this week with soccer matches in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

With 48 teams in 104 matches, this will be the biggest World Cup ever.

Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, the international federation that runs the tournament, has declared that this will be the greatest event that humanity, mankind, has ever seen and ever will see.

So, yes, there's plenty of excitement.

More than 5 million tickets have been sold to international travelers alone.

But this is also a season of some discontent surrounding the Cup.

Aside from logistical challenges like transportation, there are issues arising from war, politics, infectious disease, and, according to many, greed.

FIFA's ticketing practices and pricing have outraged many fans and prompted investigations by two state attorneys general.

U.S.

immigration restrictions and the war with Iran have affected travel from many countries, and the Ebola outbreak has the attention of local and international health officials.

And just to keep things interesting this week, there's the NBA finals and another one-of-a-kind sports event coming up on Sunday, the Ultimate Fighting Championship on the White House lawn.

To talk about all this, we've invited Laura Williamson, editor-in-chief of The Athletic, to join us.

The Athletic is the subscription-based sports journalism site of The New York Times.

Before joining The Athletic, Laura Williamson was sports news editor and a correspondent at The Daily Mail.

She joined us from London, where she is based.

We recorded our conversation yesterday.

Laura Williamson, welcome to Fresh Air.