Pablo Torre

I want to apologize to our audience because we are making you do some basic math here.

These are big numbers, trying to track them, trying to see what is the cost, what is the benefit.

And this brings us to the thing I got to illustrate before we let everyone go here, before we free you from our private prison, the studio.

Because Gianni Infantino at the start promised $30 billion and people have been complaining about ticket prices.

And now, it seems, there was this solution.

FIFA was going to do something quite generous for the public, actually.

Because they agreed to waive what?

Yeah, the sales tax for Missouri was going to be 8.85%, which, you know, again, the way tax works, costs customers money, make it more expensive, but provide something back for the cities and therefore the public in terms of what the state had available to make back in terms of those costs and benefits.

I just assumed that they had one job here, which was, can you just calculate this?

And their calculation you're saying was...

Which is not 2022 for those scoring at home.

And so what is the gap between what Missouri thought it was giving up versus what it was actually giving up by waiving taxes on ticket sales?

And by the way, just to clarify, that is a conservative estimate.

You're being very responsible because...

hospitality pricing, the secondary market, ticket resales, where FIFA is taking 15% from the buyer and the seller.

I would say gross overestimation is the thing we're all trying to avoid.

So all of this is to say that FIFA, in response to your reporting, in response to this folder full of documents, what do they say?

And so there is one last document in your folder, which I want to read from because this one acknowledges a bunch of what you just said in writing.

And this one is dated November 17th, 2025.

It's to the CEO of the U.S.