FIFA declares that Greed is Good
By Kiran Emrich
When Gordon Gekko uttered the immortal line “Greed is good” in the 1987 film Wall Street, we weren’t expected to agree. FIFA, the world governing body of football, has taken the mantra to heart and it reaches a new zenith (or nadir) with the 2026 Men’s World Cup. Greed is nothing new, from increasing profits swallowed up from tournaments to the bribery that characterised the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Now in 2026, the greed of FIFA meets its match with the unadulterated capitalist greed of this year’s main hosts the USA and this tournament stinks!
From Mussolini to Trump
The FIFA World Cup is never far from controversy. As early as the second tournament in 1934, when Mussolini’s fascist regime hosted the World Cup in Italy, dangerous regimes have a long association with the tournament. Suspicions that Mussolini fixed the tournament by personally selecting favourable referees to ensure that Italy won have lingered ever since.
In 1978, Argentina hosted the World Cup just two years after a military coup that overthrew the government. The military junta killed 30,000 people in seven years, while survivors of torture camps reported being able to hear World Cup matches in nearby stadiums during their torture. Despite calls to boycott the tournament, it went ahead as FIFA turned a blind eye to the political situation.
As the World Cup has expanded, the number of countries willing to host the tournament has shrunk. Nonetheless, FIFA has brought the tournament to new places, resulting in the controversial 2018 and 2022 tournaments in Russia and Qatar. Criticisms over bombing and invasions of Ukraine, Syria and Yemen, lack of democracy, treatment of women and LGBTQ+ people, use of slave labour and the environmental costs were all ignored by FIFA.
This summer’s World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico features many of the same concerns centred on the United States of America. For the first time, a host nation is at war with a participating country. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, there was international condemnation that led to Russia being banned from qualifying for the World Cup that year. When the USA (and Israel) launched air strikes on Iran in February, there was public outcry but football authorities failed to sanction the USA let alone remove them as hosts.
The political situation between the USA and Iran, despite a ceasefire and ongoing negotiations, put Iran’s participation in the tournament in doubt as the hosts refused to reassure Iran that the team would be safe in attending. One particular sticking point was over whether entry visas would be issued to the whole squad, including players, coaches and officials. A partial compromise was announced by Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on 25 May, that the Iran squad would use the Mexican city of Tijuana as their base instead of the previously agreed Tucson, Arizona, and would only enter the USA on the day of their matches which are scheduled to take place in Los Angeles and Seattle. This goes against FIFA’s own regulations that state teams must be allowed to arrive in the host city at least 48 hours before a match.
What happens if the USA and Iran are drawn together in a later round remains to be seen. Both previous World Cup meetings between the two passed by with little incident but they were not actively at war at the time. While war or conflict is nothing new, this situation is unprecedented in World Cup history and it belies the idea that football and politics can ever be separated.
““FIFA itself politicised this World Cup with its fawning attitude to American President Donald Trump.””
FIFA itself politicised this World Cup with its fawning attitude to American President Donald Trump. This was made clear by the creation of a new award, the FIFA Peace Prize, awarded to Trump in December 2025 to placate him after his attempts to win the Nobel Peace Prize were unsurprisingly rejected.
This followed on from the Club World Cup in the summer of 2025 in the USA where Donald Trump was allowed to take centre stage during the tournament, most particularly the final, in a way almost reminiscent of Mussolini in 1934.
The world’s fans shut out
The Trump regime’s use of ICE to terrorise immigrants and people of colour has created an environment in which so many football fans will not feel safe attending the tournament. There has been no guarantees from the American government that fans and even players and coaches will not be targeted by ICE – that is if they even get a visa to enter the USA. Fans from four countries were effectively given blanket bans – Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Iran and Senegal – while others including Algeria, Cabo Verde and Tunisia were told they could only attend if they provided a $15,000 bond.
Visa issues are already reducing the number of fans attending, but it is now affecting teams as well. Switzerland’s star striker Breel Embolo was initially denied a visa and couldn’t travel with the rest of his team. At Chicago airport, Iraq’s star player Aymen Hussein was detained and interrogated for seven hours, while the team’s official photographer was detained for hours before being deported. Africa’s top referee on the list of referees for the tournament, Somalian Omar Artan, was denied entry at Miami airport and deported to Istanbul, despite being given a diplomatic passport. The Senegal and Uzbekistan teams were subject to extra and invasive searches on arrival. 90% of Moroccan fans have had their visas denied. It is clear that US authorities are particularly targeting people coming from Muslim countries. But even a number of Scottish fans who had ESTA’s approved in December got emails on 3 June saying their approval had been revoked, leaving them with almost no time to appeal or apply for alternative visas.[1]
No previous host nation has restricted entry for teams and fans in this way and it ignores the ideal of the World Cup being a tournament for all.
Infantino’s profiteering World Cup
If fans do manage to attend the tournament, they will be faced by inflated costs. FIFA has used a variable pricing system for setting prices for match tickets, resulting in the most expensive World Cup tickets ever, double the equivalent prices from the 2022 World Cup. Many fans who bought tickets found the price increased during the process of buying them.
In February, FIFA president Gianni Infantino declared that all tickets were sold out already. Yet just ten days before the tournament started, there were still around 74,000 tickets available according to TicketData, an independent site that tracks availability of sporting event tickets. Thousands of tickets have been available on resale sites for much lower rates than their original price. FIFA has been accused of artificially suppressing availability of tickets to justify increased prices and are now under investigation by the attorney generals of New York and New Jersey.[2] At time of publication, 180,000 tickets were still unsold. It now looks like FIFA are flooding the market with cheaper tickets in a desperate bid to avoid the spectacle of empty stadiums.
On top of the cost of match tickets which are set by FIFA, local organisers have also raised their prices. Fans taking the train to the MetLife stadium in New Jersey which will host the final will have to pay $98 return compared to the usual $12.90, and only a public backlash forced the transit authority to reduce it from $150! The New York Times revealed that only 5% of train tickets have sold so far.[3] With no other public transport options, and no pedestrian access, fans will have no choice but to pay. Contrast this with previous host nations where transport was subsidised for fans. Not to mention the huge distances between stadiums across an entire continent that means fans will be forced to fly between host cities at inflated airline prices.
FIFA announced a ban on fans bringing their own water bottles into the stadiums which meant that they would be forced to purchase drinks within the stadiums with reported prices of $9 for bottled water. Given the high expected summer temperatures, banning water bottles presents an obvious health and safety issue for fans which FIFA are exploiting to make more money for vendors. After public outcry, FIFA partially backed down on this policy. They will now allow soft, disposable water bottles, but not reuseable ones, hardly environmentally friendly.
So much of the tournament is geared towards making money. Water breaks for players to deal with high temperatures will for the first time be compulsory in all matches, regardless of weather. This creates a scheduled break in play that American TV networks can fill with advertising, generating more revenue.
The greed is further exposed by the lack of spending on the tournament by the USA. Previous host nations have spent billions on improving their stadiums and transport infrastructure. The USA has left it to host cities to make improvements, with little or nothing spent federally, and many cities including Chicago refusing to host matches because of the costs. This leaves a tournament with wholly inadequate infrastructure, including stadiums that are not suited to host football matches and will increase likelihood of injuries to players because of poor playing surfaces.
A better game is possible
There has to be pushback to challenge this naked greed. Small stadium crowds, coupled with smaller television audiences, will have an effect, but fans will have to go further to hit FIFA’s deep pockets. Boycotting companies that provide sponsorship including Coca Cola, Adidas, Hyundai, Qatar Airways, Visa, McDonalds and Unilever is a big challenge given their size.
““Ireland still has an opportunity to take a lead this year by refusing to play scheduled matches against Israel in the autumn.””
And there has to be political consequences, FIFA should not be cooperating with countries like the USA, Israel or indeed Saudi Arabia which will host in 2034. Ireland still has an opportunity to take a lead this year by refusing to play scheduled matches against Israel in the autumn. Let that inspire a global movement to ostracise warmongers and stop them from sportswashing their reputations.
Ultimately, things will have to change or we will see many of the same issues in two years’ time at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Notes
1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2yleex87
2. Dale Johnson, "What is happening with World Cup ticket prices?", BBC, 4 June 2026. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/ckgpv7v4p9lo
3. Adam Crafton, Less than six percent of $98 New Jersey Transit tickets to MetLife Stadium sold - The Athletic, The New York Times, 2 June 2026.