A New History of the World Cup

This World Cup, unlike Russia 2018, is hosted by democratic nations, and unlike Qatar 2022 the walkways to its stadiums are not paved with bones. But it will forever be associated with newly obscene levels of fan exploitation, with Fifa’s remorseless commodification of the people’s game set to result in a gated tournament confined to those few with the requisite income, visa status and social media history. At previous World Cups resale prices were capped at face value, but for 2026 Fifa has lifted that restriction and introduced dynamic pricing on the pretext of ‘market norms’ in North America. Simultaneously it has waded into the secondary market, launching a resale platform that pockets 15 per cent commission from the seller and 15 per cent from the buyer and therefore an eye-watering third of every listing, self-incentivising multiple resales; only Fifa could make Ticketmaster and StubHub look philanthropic. One $2030 ticket for the final – the lowest bracket – was relisted the following day for $25,000; the cheapest at the time of writing is $8970, and the most expensive $11,499,998.85 (priced, it seems, to ensnare that casual buyer who might balk at $11,500,000). Responding to worldwide condemnation even from fans inured to corporate contempt, Infantino declared at a sports summit in – where else? – Dubai that ‘without Fifa, there would be no football in 150 countries in the world. There is football because, and thanks to, these revenues we generate with and from the World Cup,’ as if Homo sapiens spontaneously kicking a rolling object would never have occurred unless Fifa had franchised it. Despite its protestations that it is just going with the commercial flow, Fifa is squarely responsible for this late capitalist cacotopia: Taylor Swift, the Cure, Neil Young, Iron Maiden and even Oasis – Oasis! – have refused to employ dynamic pricing on their recent North American tours, and in Mexico Fifa was required by the government to honour face-value resales on a localised platform. The price-gouging is therefore an affront vastly larger than Fifa’s non-profit, redistributive fig leaf can cover. Trump himself recently expressed shock when he was told that the cheapest tickets for the US opener against Paraguay were set at $1120 – ‘I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest’ – but of course, unlike Mussolini, he won’t have to: Infantino has already publicly presented him with a metre-wide ticket to the final, ‘row 1, seat 1, ticket no. 45/47’.