With 62 matches played and a mouth-watering final coming up between defending champion France and Lionel Messi’s Argentina, FIFA president Gianni Infantino again called this the “best World Cup ever”.
“There’s unanimous praise from the FIFA council for this World Cup and for the unique, cohesive power it has shown. I thank Qatar, the organisers, the volunteers and everyone who have made this World Cup the best ever,” Infantino said to the world media in a press conference. “3.27 million spectators attended the first 62 games; the number was 3.03 for all games in 2018. The average attendance was 52,760, while 1.7 million attended the fan fest, 80,000 on average. No team has won all their games, and a team from each continent was there in the knockouts and we had an African team reach the semis and a woman also referred a match when Stephanie Frappart took charge of the game between Germany and Costa Rica.”
Infantino said India was second in terms of Hayya Card applications to travel to Qatar for the World Cup. “We had 2.3 million Hayya applications, and 1.9 million were approved and the top countries were Saudi, India and USA,” the FIFA president said. “We have 400 thousand applications for volunteers and 20000 were selected.”
FIFA’s revenue in the just four-year World Cup cycle also exceeded the Federation’s estimations. “The revenue is at USD 7.5 billion for the four-year cycle and it’s one billion more than what was budgeted, and this is in a period hit by Covid. The budget for the next cycle has been approved at USD 11 billion. Out of which USD 10 billion will go back to football,” Infantino said. “We are also setting up a talent development scheme for USD 100 million under Arsene Wenger.”
Infantino and FIFA are hoping the 2024 edition will make a big impact in North America and establish football as the number one sports in the region. “We are bullish about the power of football or soccer as they call it where we are going next. We are convinced that the game will be massive in North America in terms of 48 days and revenue from broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and hospitality in huge stadiums normally used for American football with 80-90,000 capacity. We’re expecting five million fans travelling specifically for these events and we’ll start working immediately.”
FIFA is also exploring a change from the earlier proposed format for 2026 where 48 teams were to be divided into 16 groups of three, with the top two qualifying for a round-of-32. “We have been looking at the format. After this World Cup, after seeing the excitement, and the last-minute drama, we have to revisit that.” Infantino added.
The 24-team Club World Cup, which was proposed to be held in 2021, was cancelled because of the pandemic and FIFA will now hold the first 32-team edition in 2025. “There will be a Club World Cup with 32 teams held every four years. And the first edition would be held in the summer of 2025. It will be in the slot of the Confederations Cup, and it will be slightly longer as we will have 32 teams. We are the only football organisation in the world that cancelled a tournament. We had a Club World Cup in 2021 but we cancelled it as we had to accommodate the Copa America and Euro,” Infantino said.
Speaking about the legacy of the current tournament and the criticism received by FIFA from stopping a few captains wear rainbow armbands, Infantino said: “FIFA has 211 countries around the world and I’m very grateful to 200 countries who expressed their support in writing and orally, and I am grateful to the others also for the discussion we are always having on every topic. And there are many different concerns in many different categories. But there are different cultures that have different ways of seeing things. We are a global organisation. We don’t have to discriminate [against] anyone. Everyone is free to express his views, his opinion, his beliefs, the way he believes as long as it’s respectful and respects the field of play. I believe we are defending values; we are defending human rights; we are defending rights of everyone in FIFA and [at the] World Cup.”
Elaborating the legacy of West Asia’s first-ever World Cup, he added: “I will wait till the end of the final to judge this World cup. The transformative legacy of this World Cup is many people from around the world have come to Qatar who didn’t know about this part or only knew what they heard. People have opened their houses, doors to welcome everyone. The legacy is that those who came and those here discovered that what was said is not true and that you can enjoy together. And all of them will speak about their experience and open up our world.”
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