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Every dollar goes back to the development of football.
So said FIFA president Gianni Infantino in Mexico City on June 10, one day before the 23rd and largest mens World Cup finals kicked off.
Infantino press conferences are rare, that one was his first in three years, but the line that FIFA recycles all or most of its money back into the sport is one he and his organisation are fond of spouting.
Advertisement The size of this summers tournament 39 days, 104 games, 48 teams means a lot of football.
And with all of that football comes more money.
Much of the build-up to these finals has been consumed by stories of sky-high ticket prices, a reality made possible by the wealth of the primary co-host, the United States.
Naturally, it provides a boon to FIFA, global footballs governing body.
The mens World Cup has long been the jewel in FIFAs crown, a fact even a passing glance at the organisations business bears out.
FIFAs finances run on four-year cycles tethered to the tournament.
In three years out of every four, FIFA loses money.
In the fourth, the one with a mens World Cup in, it makes that all back plus extra on top.
That has never been more the case than now.
FIFAs 2023-26 revenue has been budgeted to land at a whopping $13billion (9.7bn) an increase of over 70 per cent from the previous four-year cycle.
Of that $13bn, $9bn is forecast to arrive in 2026, with just about all of it attributable to the World Cup.
Final figures are likely to be higher.
FIFAs scope is dizzying.
The aim of returning as much money as possible to football means huge costs.
To go alongside $13billion revenues, FIFA, a not-for-profit entity, intends to spend $12.9bn, leaving just $100m to bolster reserves.
Yet in each of the past two cycles, FIFA booked $1.2billion in surpluses, way in advance of its $100m budgets.
Reserves already sat at $2.7bn at the end of 2025, even before this World Cup.
FIFAs cash pile has swollen to $1.2bn; the organisation holds almost $6bn in bonds, investments and deposits.
An entity nearly laid to ruin by bribery and corruption just 11 years ago now has more money sloshing around than ever before.
Where does it come from? Where does it go? Sit back.
This is FIFA, one of the richest sporting organisations on Earth.
Advertisement For all its size and reach, the primary reason FIFA makes so much money is deceptively simple: people like watching football.
Of the $13billion revenue budgeted for the current cycle, $8.9bn, or 68 per cent, stems from TV rights sales, hospitality rights and ticket sales.
In each of the past five cycles, alongside budgets for the current one and the upcoming 2027-30 four-year period, such revenue streams made up more than half of FIFAs total income.
That total income is on course to double inside a decade.
As explained above, FIFAs earnings are pegged to the mens World Cup but, even without that bounty, income is already way up on previous cycles.
From 2023 to 2025, it took in revenues of $4.3billion; in the first three years of the previous two cycles, that sum was $1.8bn.
If we strip out the $2.1bn generated from last years expanded Club World Cup, the current cycle is still $400m ahead of its precursors.
Against FIFAs own budgeted figures for the past three years, revenues are $778m ahead of target.
FIFAs single-year revenue record was $5.769billion in 2022, a mark it was budgeting to blitz past in 2026.
In fact, we already know its done so.
At the end of 2025, FIFAs accounts detailed $7.783billion in revenues already contracted for, but not yet recognised, in the 2023-26 cycle.
In other words: revenues which will be recognised this year.
Even more beyond that contracted $7.8bn will almost certainly arrive: in 2022, the year of the previous mens World Cup, FIFA booked $5.8bn in revenue, $1.6bn higher than was contracted at the end of 2021.
Broadcasting revenues comprise $3.3billion, or 42 per cent, of income already contracted for this year and, in conjunction with the past three years, FIFAs money from TV rights totals $3.621bn, or $4.621bn if we include the $1bn received for the rights to screen the Club World Cup 12 months ago.
Advertisement In the 2000s, those broadcast rights were dominated by European payers, with FIFAs TV income from footballs richest territory comprising 50 per cent of broadcast revenues in the 2007-10 cycle.
European dominance has not remained, however.
In the last cycle, European broadcasters remained the highest payers but their contribution to the overall broadcast rights pot was down to only 31 per cent; in the 2015-18 period, the territory was actually bumped into second place.
The displacers each time have come from Asia and North Africa (known as MENA, short for Middle East and North Africa).
Broadcast revenue from there topped $1billion in the 2019-22 cycle, having fallen just short in the four years prior.
TV income rose 70 per cent between 2014 and 2022 and, while the exact source of that rise is not broken down further, analysis of FIFAs media rights partners is instructive.
For the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, rights in the MENA territory were principally held by Al Jazeera.
Since then, that networks sports division got spun off and rebranded under the beIN Media Group banner, and even more handsomely backed by Qatari state funds.
Nasser Al-Khelaifi, beINs chairman (and Paris Saint-Germains club president), now also chairs European Football Clubs (EFC), an independent body for teams across the continents that affords Al-Khelaifi a representative post on the FIFA council via his role as EFC chair.
The abundance of money already directed at club-game TV rights in Europe might explain why FIFAs takings from that region have stalled.
Earnings topped out at $1.289billion for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and, in the 2019-22 cycle, lagged over $200m behind that high point.
Earnings from Europe in 2023 for the Womens World Cup that year lagged others noticeably, though time differences the tournament was hosted by Australia and New Zealand didnt help matters.
There are causes for concern in other territories, too.
Advertisement FIFAs 2023-26 budget does not disclose the expected split of broadcast rights by region, and FIFA declined to provide one when asked by The Athletic, but recent reporting from The New York Times, The Athletics parent organisation, highlighted how that $4.3billion figure might have been pushed even higher were it not for a deal struck in the territory players and fans have descended on to attend this World Cup.
Fox Corporation will pay $485million to screen the tournament in the United States, rights which industry experts told The New York Times would be worth between $1bn and $1.5bn if put out to tender today.
That agreement stems from FIFAs shifting of the 2022 World Cup to late in that year to avoid searing summer heat in host country Qatar.
That moved the tournament to a point in the calendar teeming with American sports (NFL and NBA, among others) and, fearing litigation from Fox, to which it had already sold the 2022 rights, FIFA agreed to extend the contract to 2026.
That has left a huge sum on the table even as FIFA is projecting an $838million rise in broadcast rights this cycle, a number which does not include the further $1bn for those Club World Cup rights.
Without a breakdown of the budgeted broadcast income by territory, it is unclear where FIFA expects to make that $838million in extra income, particularly with the lucrative U.S.
market tethered to a sum agreed over a decade ago.
One source did highlight that having more games at this World Cup naturally lends itself to higher rights values, though no further detail was forthcoming, and we also know that, as at the end of December, FIFA had already contracted for over 85 per cent of its broadcast revenue target for this cycle.
A further $643m is required in 2026 to hit the budget.
There have been issues elsewhere.
FIFA has experienced significant trouble in realising hoped-for broadcast revenues from East Asia in the current cycle, with time differences making a North American World Cup, with Canada and Mexico as co-hosts, far less attractive than Qatars offering.
Advertisement As of early May, FIFA had still not inked rights deals for China and India, two huge markets.
Aims of nine-figure deals from each territory had to be revised a long way downward and though agreements were eventually made with China Media Group and, in India, Zee Entertainment, a significant haircut on FIFAs initial goal is expected.
The hydration breaks that have split each half of every game at this tournament have drawn much ire, even as FIFA has doubled down on their use as purely a sporting matter.
Infantino stated, on June 23, that in a financial sense, FIFA gains absolutely nothing from the breaks, that there is no additional revenue for FIFA, as all commercial agreements were signed well in advance.
Yet that ignores the future impact of FIFA imposing, and lauding, these multiple extra stoppages in each and every World Cup match.
Come the 2030 edition in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, should these breaks remain in place, FIFA will be able to barter for higher rights deal packages when selling to broadcasters.
Even if, as FIFA claims, there is no immediate financial benefit, the statement will not hold true if hydration breaks become a World Cup mainstay.
And Infantinos continued vaunting of them suggests only one outcome.
Another revenue source has dominated the run-up to this World Cup.
Ever since it was confirmed, in early September 2025, that FIFA would use dynamic pricing for the event, sports pages and websites have been awash with wince-worthy ticket costs and other tales of how the tournament will generate ticketing and hospitality income never before seen.
Where exactly those revenues will land remains anyones guess, but it is a sure thing theyll far surpass the previous record of $928.8million earned from Qatar 2022.
FIFA had originally budgeted for ticketing and hospitality revenues of $3.097billion; a further $500m was then added in respect of last years Club World Cup.
The $410.5m earned from that tournament in the U.S.
actually fell some way short of that $500m budget, but even if the main national-teams event does the same, it will still translate to record revenues for FIFA.
Advertisement At the end of December last year, $2.064billion in ticketing and hospitality sales had already been contracted for.
That left a further $986million to be earned this year to meet budget, and there are indications elsewhere of how sales have gone in the World Cup year itself.
FIFA initially planned to bring its hospitality operation in-house, but shelved that in its revised cycle budget.
A return to the outsourcing model of old saw On Location, a subsidiary of TKO Group, appointed FIFAs official hospitality partner.
Per recent TKO filings, at the end of March, On Location held $937.3million in restricted cash relating to World Cup hospitality sales.
That represented a $582.4m increase in just three months, reflecting both a ramping up of activity as the tournament neared and the appetite of (primarily) the U.S.
market for tickets this summer.
How much of that cash reeled in by On Location winds up as FIFA revenue remains to be seen.
A curiosity lies in how FIFAs shift back to an outsourced hospitality model saw budgeted costs fall but no corresponding drop in revenue.
Expenditure naturally goes down as a result of FIFA pushing the cost of hospitality sales onto On Location, but the net revenue due to FIFA would be expected to slide too, as On Location is due a sizeable fee for its work.
When asked by The Athletic about the apparent disconnect in the revised budget, FIFA explained that the change in hospitality model had been incorporated but that its combined ticketing and hospitality budget nevertheless remained the same.
By extension, expected revenues from ticket sales must have been revised upward.
One explanation for the lack of revenue fall is that high ticket prices are being used to offset any money now given away from hospitality.
In December, though, a source, speaking anonymously, told The Athletic that ticket sales were not compensating for any reduced revenues elsewhere.
Advertisement Even with that outsourced model, FIFAs hospitality take should zoom past the $242.9million earned in Qatar four years ago, just as ticket sales will have already eclipsed the $685.9m from then, both as a result of the hosts market conditions and the sheer scale of the tournament.
An extra 40 games in 2026, and in generally bigger stadiums, means a lot more tickets on sale this time: using expected capacities for the 16 host venues, nearly 6.7 million tickets have been available, more than double the 3.2m of 2022.
The exact sums FIFA has pocketed from all those tickets wont be made clear until next year, but theres already been an evident cost to their strategy of milking the U.S.
market for all it is worth.
Negative publicity has plagued the entire ticketing process, and more serious ramifications may await.
On June 9, Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton announced an investigation into FIFAs World Cup ticketing practices, amid allegations it misled buyers over what they were purchasing.
Paxton was the third state attorney-general inside two weeks to launch proceedings relating to World Cup tickets; in late May, his counterparts in New York and New Jersey launched their own investigations into ticket sales in their states and subpoenaed FIFA.
To the allegation that fans were provided with misleading seating maps, which were later changed to accommodate a new, pricier ticketing category, FIFA said the initial diagrams were designed to provide guidance rather than the exact seat layout, and reflect the general extent of each ticket category within the stadium.
In a separate statement provided to The Athletic for this article, FIFA addressed a broader question around the high prices of tickets and, given the organisation is already signposting it will surpass its $13billion revenue target, whether there was scope to reduce ticket prices from the record levels that have instead been seen.
Fans are at the heart of the FIFA World Cup, and never before have more tickets been sold directly to fans, a FIFA spokesperson said.
FIFA has established a ticket sales and secondary-market model that reflects standard ticket market practices for major sporting and entertainment events across the host countries.
Advertisement Adding to FIFAs earnings from this tournament is a resale platform from which it takes a 30 per cent fee on every transaction, up from 10 per cent or less at previous World Cups.
Resale fees are not capped in the United States (in Mexico, with its stricter ticket resale laws, prices have been limited to face value), as they were in previous host countries, with FIFA arguing a cap in the U.S.
market would encourage sellers to go to third-party sites and make more money.
FIFAs resale and exchange marketplace provides a safe, transparent, and secure environment for fans to sell or transfer tickets to other fans, the spokesperson said.
Unlike the entities behind profit-driven third-party ticket marketplaces, FIFA is a not-for-profit organisation.
FIFA can proudly say that revenue generated from the FIFA World Cup every four years is reinvested to support the development of mens, womens and youth football across all FIFA 211 member associations, every day of the year via FIFA Forward and other key initiatives, in line with the FIFA statutes.
Even six months out from this World Cup, FIFA had already topped its full-cycle revenue targets for marketing and licensing rights.
The latters revenue budget was revised down from $669million to $400m following the cessation of a decades-long video-game partnership with EA Sports but, in any case, at $484m in contracted or realised licensing revenues at the end of 2025, the lower target has been surpassed.
Marketing performance has been especially impressive in this cycle, with a slew of new deals inked.
Perhaps the most substantial of those was the four-year global partnership with Aramco, Saudi Arabias state-owned oil business and one of the worlds most profitable companies.
The size of that deal, like most World Cup sponsorships, has not been disclosed, though inferences can be made.
The Aramco pact was agreed in 2024, alongside other prominent ones with Bank of America, Lays (Walkers in the UK), Lenovo and Verizon.
FIFAs future contracted revenues for the current four-year period deals agreed but not due to be recognised as income until later in the cycle, principally during the World Cup rose by $1.111billion in 2024.
Advertisement Aramcos agreement was announced as including sponsorship rights for multiple events including...FIFA World Cup 2026 and FIFA Womens World Cup 2027.
The Club World Cup last year did not list Aramco as a partner, though the much smaller 2025 Intercontinental Cup (the annual competition previously known as the Club World Cup) did.
Much of the deal therefore wont be recognised as revenue until 2026 onwards, with the unrecognised value sitting in that contracted revenues balance (contracted revenues for the 2027-30 cycle also rose by $1.1billion in 2025).
The $1.1billion increase in current cycle contracts wasnt fully attributable to the Aramco package, as others were announced in 2024, too.
But it is notable such a huge rise over a third of the original budget for marketing revenues occurred in the year that deal was signed.
And it was little surprise that, as the World Cup kicked off in Mexico City on June 11, the first sponsor splattered across advertising hoardings along the perimeter of the Estadio Azteca pitch was..
Aramco.
The recent contribution of the Saudi Arabian state to FIFAs coffers hardly ends there.
That Club World Cup exceeded its $500million marketing budget, with $669m gleaned from sponsorship packages agreed with, among others, Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund (PIF).
The size of that deal is unknown too, and others, including AB InBev, Visa, Qatar Airways and Coca-Cola all partnered with FIFA for a tournament which was also played in the U.S.
summer.
Yet PIFs contribution plainly helped achieve those bumper marketing revenues, ones which more than made up for the Club World Cups $89million under-performance on its ticketing and hospitality budget.
FIFAs links to Saudi funding grow stronger still when we consider the chain of events which preceded that tournament.
In December 2024, FIFA confirmed it had agreed a $1billion deal with DAZN to broadcast its new, expanded, once-every-four-years Club World Cup.
Advertisement The following month, DAZN entered into a strategic partnership with SURJ, a subsidiary of Saudis PIF.
Another two months later, SURJ invested $1billion in DAZNs ordinary share capital, to provide DAZN with working capital and funding for new investments.
The size of the stake acquired by SURJ has not been officially disclosed, but was reported to be around 10 per cent.
Subsequent filings at UK Companies House for DAZN detail $987million in new shares issued on April 2, 2025, in exchange for an 8.98 per cent stake in the business.
A month later, in May, DAZN officially confirmed its sole ownership of the Club World Cups broadcast rights for $1bn.
Then, a little more than a month before the first match kicked off, PIF was announced as an official partner of the event.
Amid all of this came the really big news: a week after that December announcement, FIFA confirmed Saudi Arabia as the sole host of the 2034 mens World Cup.
That had been trailed over a year earlier, when the country was announced as the only bidder and, soon after, anointed as the tournament venue on Infantinos Instagram page, even though the official vote lay 13 months away.
FIFAs decision to truncate the 2034 bidding period to just 25 days, combined with incorporating three confederations as 2030 hosts (three games will be played in South America to mark the centenary of the first edition in Uruguay in 1930, and the rest across Morocco in Africa, and Europes Portugal and Spain) to leave only Asia and Oceania able to bid because of rotation rules, seemingly cleared the way for a Saudi World Cup in eight years time.
Infantinos claims of widespread consultation around those moves were, according to The New York Times, disputed by the heads of some member associations.
However it was arrived at, Saudi Arabia has a home World Cup to look forward to, and FIFA has reaped significant financial rewards from Saudi state funds.
The World Cup already provides huge marketing opportunities for FIFA, and big corporations have long been happy to affix their name beside that of global footballs governing body.
But it is no coincidence that FIFAs soaring revenues have arrived at the same time a relationship with one of the richest countries on Earth has blossomed.
When asked by The Athletic about the impact of that Aramco pact from 2024, a FIFA spokesperson said it would not make sense to single out one sponsorship deal, citing those others inked with big companies in the same year.
Advertisement Even so, Aramcos top billing on hoardings across this World Cup has been hard to miss, and FIFA itself gave the deal plenty of prominence two years ago.
FIFAs 2024 annual report refers to Aramco as a major global partner and reserves a whole page just for that deal, a privilege conspicuously missing for other sponsors.
Infantinos pitch was simple, brazen and effective.
It was late February at the Hallenstadion in the Swiss city of Zurich, 20 minutes drive from the FIFA headquarters he would soon inhabit as the organisations ninth permanent president.
At the bodys 2016 Extraordinary Congress, in his final speech ahead of the vote to anoint a successor to Sepp Blatter, Infantino told its member nations: The money of FIFA is your money.
It is a line he has repeated since, one which drew loud applause and steered him to the top of world football.
It is a line which looks likely to keep him there, perhaps even unopposed, when he stands for re-election next year.
Payments to member countries have skyrocketed under Infantino.
His assumption of the presidency saw the organisation implement its FIFA Forward programme, described at inception in rather glowing terms, if FIFA did say so itself.
FIFA Forward was an enormous leap towards the future of football, would serve to break down the barriers of discrimination and had been designed to meet international standards of prudent management and transparency.
Whatever the truth of all that, one thing was certain: FIFAs member associations would be receiving a lot more money.
Via the old Financial Assistance Programme operated under Blatter, FIFAs then 209 member nations received a combined $433.7million, or around $2.1m each over the 2011-14 cycle.
The worlds six member confederations AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC and UEFA received $20m apiece.
Members received further payments from directives such as the Goal programme (a total of $123m over the four-year cycle), but overall sums disbursed totalled $721.5m, or less than $3m per member once the confederation amounts were deducted.
Overnight, that changed.
Advertisement Under FIFA Forward 1.0, operated between May 2016 and the end of 2018, FIFA allocated $1.079billion, a $357.1m (49 per cent) increase on the previous cycle, even though the programme was in operation for 17 months less than the four years of a full cycle.
Forward 1.0 conferred up to $5million, over a four-year cycle, to each member; Forward 2.0 increased that to $6m; Forward 3.0, which will end this year, gifts member associations up to $8m over four years, up to $5m to zonal and regional associations and up to $60m to the confederations.
In all, inclusive of the budgeted $792m in 2026, FIFA Forward will have allocated $5.042bn in a little over a decade.
The full amount given to associations will be even higher.
Another huge pot of cash, generated from this World Cup, is budgeted to flow to members and confederations from 2026 onward.
The current cycle budget includes $660million allocated to a Football Development Fund (FDF) which, while distinct from the Forward programme, is closely linked.
Per FIFA, the objective of the FDF is to strengthen FIFAs vision to make football truly global by supporting all of FIFAs member associations and confederations in their endeavours to develop football in all its forms and at all levels.
Detail on how that enormous $660million pot will be divvied up hasnt been disclosed, and the $27m allocated to the FDF on the back of Qatar 2022 remained unreleased at the end of 2025, but it all adds up to yet more money for members to access.
Together, across Forward and the FDF, allocated monies since 2016 total $5.730bn.
One of the consequences of Infantinos initial pitch to members is that, as revenues swell, so must those distributions.
FIFA Forward 4.0, due to commence with the 2027-30 cycle, budgets for $2.7billion in payments to members, a 20 per cent increase on the already hefty sums allocated in the current cycle under Forward.
Notable, however, is that there is no provision in the next budget for FDF spending.
Advertisement FIFA has keenly highlighted the increase in Forward payments but the disappearance of that $660million FDF pot means member payments are actually budgeted to fall in the next cycle, from $2.91bn across Forward and FDF to the $2.7bn of Forward 4.0.
A FIFA spokesperson disputed the presentation of member payments falling in the 2027-30 cycle, highlighting that while the $660million allocated under FDF falls into 2026, the actual payments will not just come this year.
Per FIFA, excess cash flow will be accessible in 2026 and beyond.
FIFA also highlighted how it often revises its budgets mid-cycle, so the Forward 4.0 budget could yet increase, too.
The initial bluster accompanying Forwards announcement hinted at FIFA enforcing a level of strictness around members tapping funds but, in reality, just about everything allocated has been paid out.
Of the $4.278billion assigned to Forward and the FDF to the end of 2025, $3.978bn (93 per cent) had been paid.
Across the now 211 member associations, 160 received 90 per cent or more of their allocation.
Only three Yemen, North Korea and Iraq received less than half.
In a past statement on the matter to The Athletic, a FIFA spokesperson said: Under the FIFA Forward programme, each one of the 211 member associations has the same rights and obligations...with every recipient of funds undergoing a yearly central audit performed by world-class independent auditors.
The amounts on offer, at least to FIFAs poorer nations, are huge.
It is little wonder so many continue to line up behind Infantino, no matter what bad press comes his and FIFAs way.
His claim that in 150 countries, football would not exist without his organisations handouts has never, at least publicly, been evidenced with any rigour by FIFA, but it is safe to say that, via his hand, a significant number of national associations are wealthier than ever.
While the biggest expenditure shift might have taken place in development, FIFA remains primarily a competition organiser and, more so than that, primarily a World Cup organiser.
The 2023-26 budget allocates $7.5billion to competitions and events, around half of that assigned to the 2026 mens World Cup.
That still leaves over $3.7billion for elsewhere, much of which can be explained by FIFA introducing their expanded and much-hyped Club World Cup a year ago in the U.S.
and, with it, yet more grist for their financial mill.
Advertisement Under their old format of hosting a smaller, annual Club World Cup, FIFA spent $93million on four tournaments across the 2019-22 cycle.
In December 2023, that seven-team, 10-day tournament, held in Saudi Arabia and won by Manchester City, cost FIFA $23m to put on.
Two years later, last summers 32-team, month-long spectacle conferred a budget of $2bn, with FIFA vowing to recycle 100 per cent of revenues from the competition back into the sport.
Those revenues exceeded budget by $126million, with better-than-expected marketing rights sales and over $40m from food and beverage sales, parking fees and host city contributions combining to offset the $89m miss on the ticketing and hospitality budget.
Alongside that, FIFA underspent on operational costs by $61m.
That left $187million to be doled out, and one of FIFAs justifications for adding yet more games to footballs calendar was that theyd give away any monies earned to club football.
As a result, a solidarity pot for non-competing teams was increased from $100m to $250m, while the remaining $37m surplus has been earmarked to protect the long-term future of the competition.
Detail on that is yet to be forthcoming, even as were now almost a year removed from the tournament ending.
In his foreword to FIFAs 2025 annual report, Infantino stated that the resulting prize money and solidarity support reached far beyond the 32 participating clubs, yet the same report detailed how FIFA was actually still in the process of implementing a solidarity scheme, with none of that $250million paid out in 2025.
FIFAs next-largest event is the Womens World Cup, which in 2023 broke even at $500million and has seen its expenditure budget for the upcoming 2027 edition in Brazil raised to $800m.
Just seven years ago, the 2019 version in France cost $157m; as elsewhere, the rapid growth in interest in the womens game is evidenced in FIFA figures.
Beyond that, FIFA puts on a host of competitions which return little in revenue but serve various interests within the football ecosystem.
The mens and womens Under-17 World Cups in 2025 each cost around $8million to stage; the mens Under-20 World Cup in Chile the same year almost three times that.
Other less-noticed events also gobbled multi-millions of a competitions budget which remains the largest tranche of FIFA expenditure, like esports tournaments ($23m), the Intercontinental Cup ($18m), the Womens Futsal World Cup ($11m) and the Beach Soccer World Cup ($11m).
Advertisement FIFA is keen to highlight the amount of its money that is reinvested into football, and have nosed that at 90 per cent of total spending in the current cycle, but less airtime is given to the cost of running FIFA the organisation.
Personnel costs, even without those directly attributable to events such as the mens World Cup, are forecast to hit $994million this cycle, a near doubling since 2015-18.
That reflects general inflation as well as FIFAs growth in staffing numbers, but it still shows the cost of running a sports global governing body.
A further $300m or so has been added in the 2027-30 budget.
During his presidential acceptance speech in 2016, Infantino told members: We will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA, and everyone in the world will applaud us and will applaud all of you for what well do in FIFA in the future.
The jury has never been more out on that one, but when Infantino spoke of reform, he presumably didnt mean trimming back any of the bureaucratic bloat he found upon his arrival.
Or he did, but only for a little while.
Measures passed at that FIFA Extraordinary Congress in 2016 slashed the number of standing committees from 26 under Blatter to just seven to, as a review panel at the time put it, improve efficiency.
Yet, since then, Infantinos presidency has once again seen FIFAs footprint expand.
Last October, the FIFA Council appointed more than 500 members to various standing committees, now 30 in number, to go alongside four independent committees and, of course, the FIFA Council itself.
The latter currently boasts 36 members, Infantino included, which is a 50 per cent increase on the 24 members of the Executive Committee, its predecessor which ultimately became swamped in scandal in the mid-2010s.
The eight vice-presidents on the council receive $300,000 annually; other members get $250,000.
On top of that, a daily allowance of up to $250 while on FIFA duty applies, and the organisation also covers pension contributions.
Advertisement Add on salaries for those atop the standing committees, alongside the costs of running three judicial bodies the ethics, disciplinary and appeals committees and were talking about a pretty penny.
In 2025 alone, FIFAs own governance and administrative costs totalled $254.3million.
Within that sits Infantinos salary: $6m in 2025, up 29 per cent in a year, and now totalling past $30m in nine years at the helm.
Those governance costs were a new high, but only more growth is expected.
Across the current cycle, they are forecast to land at $905million.
In the 2027-30 budget, the sum hits $1.087bn.
The bulk of that increase is driven by personnel costs, which are budgeted to rise by $86million (25 per cent) in the next cycle.
Whether that stems from higher staffing numbers or just paying existing roles more money is unclear.
Salaries would be expected to rise over time given the nature of inflation, but the cost of running FIFA is only headed one way.
Alongside increased personnel costs, expenditure on FIFAs legal spend is budgeted to more than double, from $55million in the current cycle to $119m in the next.
No detail is given on why; FIFA did not provide a response when asked about the matter by The Athletic.
Also left undivulged in the latest budget is how much will accrue to management figures, but 2025 saw a marked rise there, a chunk of it from Infantinos raised remuneration.
Compared with the late days of Blatters era, such costs look favourable, even more so when viewed as a percentage of booming revenues.
Yet a seat at FIFAs top table remains a plum job, and expenses are hardly restrained.
FIFAs annual congress alone now costs $30million to stage.
FIFAs sprawling structure makes getting a handle on the bodys expenditure a near-Sisyphean venture.
Across nearly two decades of FIFAs financial statements, The Athletic has collated around 4,000 individual data points on expenditure alone, reflecting the huge sums the organisation pays out and the wide array of recipients money is handed to.
Covering everything would swell an already long article yet further, but amid it all there is one cost item conspicuous by its absence in FIFAs latest accounts.
Advertisement The inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, obsequiously handed to U.S.
President Donald Trump by Infantino at the World Cup group-stage draw in December, makes an appearance in the 2025 annual report alongside the tagline of Football unites the world, yet theres no obvious sign of it in the many expense lines in the financial section.
That is even as there was a perception the trophy, a bauble not inconsiderable in its size, was made of gold.
When asked, a FIFA spokesperson said they would not expect to see an individual line item for the Peace Prize, and cited other awards FIFA hands out on an annual basis, albeit to rather less fanfare.
FIFA was not able to confirm the element make-up of the prize handed to Trump.
Ali Ibadullayev was, though.
One of the two Azerbaijani sculptors who made the Peace Prize, The Athletic contacted Ibadullayev, who confirmed it was made entirely of bronze.
FIFAs earning power through football is an old and obvious tale and, naturally, it follows that the organisation holds huge sums of cash.
At the end of 2025, FIFAs cash balance sat at $1.180billion, a $684m increase on 2024 largely explained by World Cup broadcasters and sponsors paying in advance of this summers tournament.
A lesser-known source of profit comes from how FIFA utilises these swathes of money.
As revenues and surpluses have swelled, so too have the bodys financial assets or, more prosaically, its investments.
In 2011, a new investment strategy was approved.
FIFA had historically just held large cash balances without bothering to do much with them; now, approval was granted to start investing those sums into short- and long-term bonds which would generate income by earning interest.
Immediately, around $800million went into debt securities and deposits, and both the make-up of those investments and their size have shifted since.
Advertisement In October 2018, the FIFA Council updated the organisations regulations around managing financial assets, allowing it to start investing in equities, alongside the bonds and money market instruments it already had interests in.
Equity investment, generally viewed as riskier but with higher rewards on offer, has ticked up since, albeit it remains a small part of FIFA activities.
That FIFA Council approval allowed up to five per cent of the organisations investment portfolio to be held in equities, though at the end of 2025 just 2.5 per cent of FIFAs financial assets sat there, and the proportion has been around that level since the policy change of eight years ago.
At the end of December last year, excluding $89million in Covid-19 relief loans to member associations and confederations, FIFAs financial assets sat at a whopping $5.684bn.
The bulk of that is held in debt securities ($3.225bn) and money market funds ($1.936bn), and was described to The Athletic by one source as both conservative and diversified.
Put another way: low-risk.
Even without much risk, the size of FIFAs investments is such that they translate to significant earnings.
In 2025 alone, $93.7million in interest income was generated from those financial assets, with a further $24.7m arising from the size of the cash balance.
Across the first three years of this cycle, FIFAs interest income has totalled $371.1million and the total benefit reaped from financing activity has been higher still.
FIFA hedges against currency rate fluctuations too, and the arrival of higher worldwide interest rates has been a boon to the bottom line.
Between 2023 and 2025, finance income totals a mammoth $672.6m, or $200m more than the previous 15 years combined.
The cash impact has been lower, but still substantial.
In the past three years, FIFAs net cash generated from interest totalled $295.9million, against $142m in the 2019-22 cycle.
In the past decade, a net $3.918bn has been ploughed into financial investments, and the rewards are really showing now.
It is not just via events on the pitch that FIFA is reaping vast sums.
Advertisement Those investments have compounded a starkly apparent reality in recent cycles: for all that FIFA costs plenty to run, it still takes in far more than it spends.
And with revenue outstripping expenditure so significantly, FIFAs reserves have improved beyond all recognition in the 21st century.
Back in the early 2000s, finances were in a parlous state, with global footballs overseer reeling from the bankruptcy of International Sport and Leisure (ISL), its media and marketing partner, which handled TV rights negotiations for the World Cup (not incidentally, ISL was later found to have bribed several FIFA officials).
In 2003, even after better-than-expected takings from the previous years mens World Cup in Japan and South Korea, FIFAs reserves sat at just $76million.
Two decades on, before another mens World Cup can boost them further, FIFAs reserve pile sits at $2.699billion.
That is a fall from its post-Qatar 2022 high ($3.971bn), but, as in every World Cup year, a huge surplus is forecast in 2026.
As well, across the past decade, FIFA has regularly exceeded its in-year budget, so it would come as little surprise if this years results went beyond what has been forecast to date.
FIFAs finances are more dizzying this year than in perhaps any before it, but even if they bucked the trend of outperformance and only met their 2026 budget, the reserves position would climb to $5.769billion.
That is, frankly, quite a lot of money.
It would, to public knowledge, be the highest reserves of any sporting body in the world, even surpassing those of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The IOC has to put on Olympic Games (summer and winter editions) twice every four years, so in reality FIFAs cushion is even greater.
When queried about how high is too high in respect of reserves, FIFA did not provide an answer.
Like any not-for-profit, FIFA needs to retain a buffer in the event of its income reducing.
The pandemic provides a good recent example: FIFAs reserves position allowed it to quickly mobilise to provide up to $1.5billion in support for its 211 member associations and six regional confederations.
Nowhere close to that amount was ultimately used, but there was the ability if needed.
FIFA did not provide a response to The Athletics questioning around what level of reserves would be deemed sufficient, or why, even with the reserves position approaching $6billion this year, it is budgeting for another $100m surplus in 2027-30 (which history indicates will be easily surpassed).
However, one source, speaking anonymously because they were not permitted to comment officially on FIFAs finances, linked the seemingly ceaseless accumulation of reserves to the growth of the mens World Cup.
If the tournament were to be unexpectedly waylaid, it would leave FIFA on the hook for huge liabilities.
Such vast reserves help mitigate that risk.
Not all of the excess of recent cycles has been retained.
Advertisement As a $1.2billion surplus loomed in the 2019-22 cycle, in the February of the latter year, FIFA allocated $209.6m to a newly founded Talent Development Scheme (TDS), led by former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and ex-USWNT head coach Jill Ellis.
By the end of 2025, $119.6million of that had been deployed, and FIFAs annual report boasted of 600 tailor-made projects in more than 180 member associations ..
to strengthen their individual talent development pathways for girls and boys alike.
Forty-five FIFA Talent Academies have been put in place under TDS, with the aim of reaching 100 by 2027.
Yet even with that, FIFAs reserves have grown rapidly under Infantino, to a projected five and a half times the $1billion or so at the end of his 2016 inauguration year.
Under him, more money than ever is being shared out to associations and the like, but as much may also wind up in FIFAs reserves.
Where that growth will end is anyones guess.
But it does cast a different light on the claim that every dollar goes back into the development of football.
The mens World Cup is, by any measure, a behemoth.
Routinely cited alongside the summer Olympic Games as the most-viewed sporting event on the planet, its importance to FIFAs survival in its current form cannot be overstated.
Without its flagship tournament, global footballs governing body would simply not be able to generate anywhere near the sums it does.
The surpluses derived from each iteration have shot up this century.
In 2006, the World Cup in Germany added $1.554billion to FIFAs bottom line.
By 2022, after accounting for $123m in contributions from host country Qatar, that figure was $4.606bn.
How much the 2026 World Cup will add to the bottom line is uncertain.
Clearly, FIFA is expecting another hugely profitable tournament, and revenues will hit heights never before seen.
As mentioned, $660million in earnings from this summer have already been allocated in the direction of FIFA members.
Advertisement Yet costs will also hit a new peak.
After removing those host-nation contributions, Qatar 2022 cost FIFA $1.708billion to stage, a little less than the $1.824bn of Russia 2018.
This summers three-country extravaganza will set the body back $3.756bn.
Even that figure, announced in the 2024 revised budget, has been subject to tweaks.
Amid concern from participating nations about the cost of playing in the tournament, FIFA has ramped up prize money distributions and preparation fees.
The pot covering each of those, team subsidies and payments under the club benefits programme which compensates clubs who release players to represent their countries started at $896million, rose to $1.007bn in the revised budget and, following further tweaking less than two months before last months big kick-off, have ultimately reached $1.226bn.
A bigger tournament equals higher costs elsewhere, too.
FIFAs operating budget for this World Cup is $1.122billion, over two and a half times the amount that went on Qatar 2022.
Or it was; in March, The Athletic reported how FIFA had cut over $100m from the budget and was imploring departments to make efficiencies.
When asked, for this piece, how the scything of the operating budget tallied with the expectation that current cycle revenues will exceed their $13billion target, a FIFA spokesperson told The Athletic: FIFA is constantly reviewing budget efficiencies to ensure costs are controlled so that as much revenue as possible can be invested in the development of football around the world.
The same statement went on to reiterate how FIFA will invest over $3.7billion into the World Cup, implying though not quite stating outright there has been no downgrade to the overall tournament budget.
The corresponding conclusion, that operational efficiencies have funded the increased payouts to participating nations, isnt much of a leap.
Advertisement Of course, revenues should still far outstrip that.
FIFA has relied on every World Cup in living memory to fund all of its other activities, and this cycle is no different without the World Cup, FIFA would simply not exist in its current, or past, guise.
The expansion of the Club World Cup shows an effort to diversify, as does increased effort surrounding the Womens World Cup.
The former made more money than expected last year, though FIFA has committed to reinvesting all of it in club football.
As for the 2023 Womens World Cup, that broke even on a $500million budget, and that figure has been ratcheted up for next years iteration in Brazil.
That 2027 version will command costs from FIFA of $800m $300m more than the tournament in Australia and New Zealand three years ago.
Around two-thirds of that increase stems from higher distributions to the wider womens game.
FIFA paid out $152million three years ago across prize money ($110m), preparation money ($31m) and its club benefits programme ($11m).
No such split for next year is yet available but, at $344m, we know the distribution to womens football will more than double.
That is laudable but also falls short of a previously stated aim.
In 2023, when announcing that $152million pot of cash, itself a tripling of that offered as part of the previous tournament in 2019, Infantino scolded broadcasters for offering much lower amounts for the rights to the Womens World Cup than the mens version, and set the aim of having equality in payments across the mens 2026 and womens 2027 World Cups.
FIFA has come up well shy of that, not least because the monies to be paid out this summer have kept rising.
It was a commendable aim, albeit not really rooted in much reality.
For his part, at the time, Infantino described it as the most difficult step.
Advertisement On the face of it, footballs worldwide governing body is in exceptionally rude health.
Revenues at FIFA are soaring, buoyed by huge growth in ticket sales and sponsorship deals; $1billion-plus surpluses have been noticed in each of the past two four-year cycles; distributions to members and, thus, wider football, have grown enormously.
There are signs, though, of coming trouble.
The most obvious looming or present danger is reputational.
FIFA will make more money than ever in this cycle, but in doing so, it has attracted lots of negative publicity and ire.
Ticket prices for this World Cup have appalled many; the tournament as a game for all has shifted to one mostly accessible only to the well-heeled.
On the pitch, the Folarin Balogun affair has brought the very integrity of the sport into question.
The financial rewards should soften that blow in the short-term, but there are valid concerns beyond that.
FIFAs 2027-30 budget might lead on $14billion revenues but take a peek below the surface and not everything is hunky-dory.
FIFA is already expecting a near-$1billion drop in ticketing and hospitality income, though anticipate being able to offset it with a $2bn uptick across TV and marketing rights.
That is feasible, but theres good reason to wonder about the strategys longevity.
This cycle has seen issues with World Cup rights in some territories.
The $1bn earned from Club World Cup TV rights in 2025 was, to put it lightly, convenient; sponsorship deals with Saudi Arabias Aramco and PIF look decidedly less secure in the long-term, given the Gulf states recent inward turn and the demise of LIV Golf.
Saudi Arabia has a vested interest in working with FIFA until the 2034 World Cup on home turf, but then what? Against this backdrop, it is easy to see FIFA and Infantinos warm embrace of mid-half hydration breaks as a future imperative: allowing broadcasters to increase advertisement slots during matches will enable FIFA to sell TV rights for greater sums.
Costs continue to grow.
Advertisement The 2029 Club World Cup has been budgeted for at $2.23billion in expenses; there is no surety on a TV deal for it as generous as last years materialising.
Meanwhile, quietly, allocations to members have been budgeted to fall in the next cycle, even as revenues are forecast to rise again.
How will that go over with those who currently keep Infantino on his throne? The disorganisation seen at this World Cup has opened up FIFA to legal challenges which will cost money to fight.
Reserves continue to bloom, but there must surely be an end to that at some stage.
One bow in FIFAs armoury is divestment: if surpluses wilt in future cycles, some of those $5.7billion in financial assets could be liquidated, and the amounts distributed across football.
Yet even if finances appear secure for a while yet, it is hard to ignore the accompanying tariffs on FIFAs standing.
With each blow struck in the U.S.-Iran war, a conflict instigated by Trump, that Peace Prize looks ever more an Orwellian construct, a monument to FIFA and Infantinos hubris.
Each time Infantino proclaims FIFA powerless in the face of U.S.
government policy, even when it banishes Africas best referee from this World Cup, or does likewise to Iranian backroom staff, FIFAs claim to offer opportunity for all and the idea of football as a weapon of peace withers that bit further.
All of it, seemingly, in the pursuit of more cash.
Perhaps it has always been like this.
Forty years ago, the previous time FIFA placed its showpiece event on Mexican soil, the great Hugh McIlvanney was lacerating about footballs governing body.
Football must be an even greater game than we thought it was, McIlvanney wrote, seven days after the 1986 final, won by Argentina.
How else, he wondered, could it thrill so many even as the World Cup itself was in constantly increasing danger of being suffocated under the dung-heap of hypocrisy, money-grabbing expediency and shameless manipulation piled upon it by FIFA.
Plus ca change.
FIFA has never been richer, a significant number of its national associations have never been so financially well-endowed, the mens World Cup has never been bigger and never have more eyes been on football, which is already the planets most popular sport.
But at what cost?.