FIFA Cancels Plan To Sell Off The World Cup, Says It Was Only Testing Whether Anyone Was Watching
FIFA has scrapped a deal to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors, citing an outcry, which in FIFA's internal documents is filed under "unexpected input."
The proposal would have let outside money buy a piece of the tournament itself, an idea so brazen that even people who have made peace with a 48-team format hosted across three countries and eleven time zones paused to say no. The reversal was announced with the tone of a man returning a lawnmower he did not borrow.
Canada, which is co-hosting next summer alongside Mexico and the United States, greeted the news with the enthusiasm of a country that has already spent the money. Toronto and Vancouver are staging matches at a combined public cost that has been revised upward often enough to qualify as a recurring cultural event. Vancouver's share alone has climbed past half a billion dollars, a figure city councillors now describe using the phrase "investment in legacy," which is municipal for "please stop asking."
The curious part is that selling equity in the World Cup would have changed almost nothing. Private capital already sets ticket prices, already sells the hospitality packages, already decides which stadium gets the good grass. The deal would simply have written it down, and writing it down is the one thing football governance has always refused to do.
FIFA says the tournament remains the property of the global football community. The global football community is invited to try booking a hotel in Vancouver next June and see how that feels.