Fifa has announced a 50% increase in World Cup prize money for next year’s tournament, with the champions set to take home $50m (£37.5m) as a reward for their success.
The news comes days after there was widespread public outrage over the price of seats at the tournament, to be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Fifa this week announced a limited number of discount tickets for fans of participating countries.
After a meeting of the Fifa Council in Doha, Fifa said $727m would be shared among its member nations “as a result of the Fifa World Cup 2026™”. Of that figure, $655m would be prize money distributed among qualifying nations. The runners-up will get $33m and those ranked between “33rd and 48th place” in the expanded contest will receive $9m each. With $1.5m given to each participating team for “preparation costs”, this means each nation is guaranteed a minimum of $10.5m.
Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, said: “The Fifa World Cup 2026 will … be groundbreaking in terms of its financial contribution to the global football community”.
In a previous revision to its projections, Fifa said it anticipated record revenues over the four-year cycle that ends in next year’s World Cup. The governing body expects to take in $13bn between 2022 and 2026, up from $7.5bn over the four years to 2022 (itself an increase from $6.4bn over the previous cycle). Much of the growth was attributed by Fifa to the expansion of the World Cup and the men’s Club World Cup which took place in the US last summer.
Fifa announced on Tuesday that $60 (£45) tickets would be made available in the allocations national associations sell to their most loyal fans, after widespread criticism of Fifa’s initial pricing.
However, only 10% of tickets within this allocation will be available at this price. For the England v Croatia match, for example, it would benefit about 400 out of the more than 4,000 fans able to buy tickets through the England Supporters Travel Club (ESTC) allocation. For the remainder, tickets will start at £198 for that opening match, and at £3,140 for the final.
The chair of the Football Supporters’ Association in England, Tom Greatrex, said the size of the prize fund proved Fifa had scope to cut ticket prices for fans. “More teams, bigger stadia, a greater number of commercial partners – [it shows] there is no need to charge extortionate ticket prices to the supporters who bring the vibrancy to the World Cup finals. It is not too late for Fifa to avoid the catastrophic error of all but killing what is special about the World Cup. They should act now.”
