This blog is about the 2026 Football World Championship, a competition on which I reluctantly became hooked. I had planned to ignore the games, and tucked away in our cottage in France this approach would be easy. There would be an exception; I would watch, if I could, the games involving England’s ‘Three Lions’ – and if they got to semi-final then final, it would be made easy as that week I would be in England.

However, my initial ‘disinterest’ gradually waned as the coverage on the internet grew and as friends in France and England became increasingly excited. Accordingly, after a few weeks, I was drawn into the frenzy of the 12-week event, even supporting teams of which I had little or no previous knowledge. Ultimately, the tournament became a quasi-addiction, to a point that and accordingly, in the days immediately after the championship ended I felt listless and strangely empty – I was experiencing classic withdrawal symptoms.

But there was another element; as the competition progressed, I became increasingly aware of an ugly side to the tournament. Here was the largest sporting event on the planet with enormous history and tradition which was launched in 1930  by FIFA ((Fédération Internationale de Football Association) now being sullied by impropriety. The tournament this year initially involved the national teams of over 200 countries whittled down to teams from 48 countries, watched in a spirit of peace by 6.5 million people in the stadia of three host countries (USA, Canada and Mexico) and by over 1 billion on TV worldwide. However, unbeknownst to many spectators and participants it’s organisation was riddled with political and financial shenanigans. Moreover, now that my ‘withdrawal’ is over, it is these shenanigans that have begun to dominate my memory. 

But turning first to the football itself. Even though I know little about the game from a player’s perspective – the last time I played competitively was when, as a ten-year-old right back, my team lost in the  local primary school cup final! However, over the years I have become an armchair expert from watching games on TV and listening to pundit commentaries and also by very occasionally as a young father watching games with my children from the stands. 

During the championship there were, for me, some wonderful footballing moments as teams were cheered on by their adoring fans. It was a delight to see the members of such teams as France and Spain playing together with such unbelievable skill, ingenuity and partnership. There were also those games where low-ranking teams, such as Cape Verde, played with enough panache to draw against teams that were nominally much better.  And in all this there were wonderful goals and saves  –  in England’s team alone the goals scored by Jude Bellingham and some of the saves by Jordan Pickford were a delight.

To match these, there were moments of frustration and worse. There were occasions when high-ranking teams played stodgily and without flair as England did against Ghana. And at another extreme, where the skills of one team were frustrated by opponents who were bent on being rough, bullying and courting disciplinary action. The way Argentina attacked the Three Lions was, as I saw it, simply awful – they played, as some have describe it – ‘animal football’. 

Now to the Football World Cup as a political entity. It is difficult to see in terms other than of political intrigue why Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s president, decided to present Donald Trump with a newly-created ‘FIFA Peace Prize’. It is beyond belief that Donald Trump could successfully lobby FIFA to reverse the one-game red card ban of the USA striker Folarin Balogun to allow him to play in their next game against Belgium. It seems odd, not to say improper, to increase the length in the interval in the final match to 30 minutes for ‘local reasons’, when the rules of the game state that the half-time break should “not exceed 15 minutes”.

Now to the financial issue. Through media rights, sponsorships and ticketing, over the four-year period up to and including the 2026 tournament, FIFA had a revenue in the order of £9.68 billion, (€11.39 billion). Indeed it is a reflection of this colossal excess and FIFAs era of extravagance that this years championship trophy was revealed to spectators as it was lifted from a bespoke and garish trunk made by the luxury fashion company ‘Louis Vuitton’ as FIFA’s ‘Official Supplier and Branded Licensee.

While this years Football World Cup has been a great sporting success, it appears that there is something rotten in the state of FIFA’s administration. 

The illustration shows a photo of the 18-carat gold FIFA trophy being held aloft by a member of the deservedly victorious Spanish team. The trophy was designed by Silvio Gazzanig and represents ‘football’s global and unifying spirit’. 

For helping me write this blog I would like to thank Al, Alan, Neil, Jacqui, Rohan and Vivien.