Listen again - Follow the Money: FIFA's Billions
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This is Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Sam Fenwick. FIFA wants to sell a piece of the World Cup. Football's world governing body says it plans to create a commercial company to run its biggest events, including the World Cup, and let outside investors buy stakes in it. It's claimed the plan could raise $10 billion. If they back it, each country's football association will get $40 million. FIFA's president Gianni Infantino says it's an offer, not an obligation, and a golden opportunity to develop the game around the world. Europe's football governing body UEFA says FIFA is using the sport to enrich itself and its friends. All of which comes back to a simple question. Where does FIFA's money come from in the first place?
Almost all of it comes from one tournament. At the start of this year's World Cup, I followed the money to find out how those billions are made. Here's that addition again. Everything in it was accurate at the beginning of June. 500 million people applied for tickets for the 2026 FIFA Football World Cup, but there were only 7 million seats. I'm Sam Fenwick at the bar in Hotel Football in the shadow of Old Trafford in Manchester here in the UK. A stadium on one side, a hotel built by former players on the other. The walls are covered with photographs of footballers from around the world. Stars who draw fans and money from every corner of the planet. Football and business side by side here in one place.
Which is rather the point because this summer the game goes global. 48 teams, 104 matches across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The biggest World Cup ever. Hi there, what can I get you?
Can I have a pint of lard, please?
Most of the world won't be watching in the stadiums. They'll be in places like this. A screen, a crowd. and their team. FIFA expects to make nearly $9 billion from the tournament. So who's paying for it? And where does all that money go? That's Business Daily from the BBC World Service. Today, we're following the money behind the FIFA 2026 World Cup. So FIFA expects to make nearly $9 billion from this tournament, and that number has grown every single World Cup. Each tournament makes more money than the last. But before we get into where that $9 billion comes from and where it goes, let's find out a bit more about FIFA, football's world governing body. It was founded more than 120 years ago as a non-profit association.
But what does that actually mean? Matt Lyons is here and he can explain.
Yes, so FIFA was founded in 1904 and headquartered in Switzerland in 1932, where it's registered, as you mentioned, as a non-profit association, which means in Swiss law it doesn't have shareholders and it can't distribute profits to its members. But that doesn't mean it doesn't make any money. It absolutely does. It just has to spend it, or at least say it's going to spend it, on football.
How much money does FIFA expect to make from the 2026 World Cup?
Here's FIFA president Gianni Infantino speaking in the build-up to these games.
The commercial programme for this World Cup is unfolding extremely well. Revenues are above expectations and this allows us to increase our investments in football development.
And on its website, FIFA points to something that it calls the FIFA Forward Programme, a development fund that, according to FIFA, put $2.8 billion into grassroots football across its 211 member associations between 2016 and 2022.
So let's look at where that income comes from. Well, it is mainly you. FIFA makes its money every four years and its first income stream comes from the sale of tickets, the face value price, the one FIFA sets. It says 500 million people tried to buy tickets to this tournament. It had 7 million tickets to sell. That's 70 applications for every single seat. Here's FIFA president again, this time talking back in December last year.
In 100 years of history of the World Cup, FIFA has sold 44 million tickets in total.
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