The Best World Cup Blog

Top FIFA's salesman insists that they will reach their goal of $5.66 billion in income in the pre and current World Cup time from 2015-2018. How could this be possible when Italy had a broadcasting deal of tens of millions, and they need to find four new North American sponsors in light of Panama qualifying over the USA. As of November 30th, 2017 FIFA had only sold one in 20 sponsor slots worldwide, the one being from a bank host in Russia for some $4 million. There comes a fine line though to when FIFA will try to fill their sponsor slots, and becoming to cheap and settling. All of this comes on top of corruption investigations involving FIFA as well as uncertainty for 2022 involving prosecution, falling oil prices, sanctions on Russian business man, and a surplus of issues with the next host location Qatar. So what can FIFA do? For one thing, they don't need to do much. The World Cup is the world's most watched sports event. On top of that despite USA not qualifying, th...

FIFA has officially warned the Spanish government that any further involvement with upcoming election for the new president could lead to severe punishment. Spain has been said to have contacted the RFEF (Royal Spanish Football Federation) multiple times about who it's new leader would be. This is against the FIFA rules which state that any contact from governments can be seen as political interference. If Fifa finds that a government has influenced one of its associations they then have the power to suspend its national team. In the case of Spain, a country which revolves around football, that would be grave news for its people and a significant disappointment for its government. Not only would a Spanish suspension be controversial, but it would remove one of the tournaments strongest teams. While suspension is still far off, it should be interesting to see Fifa's next move. Citations: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/world-cup-2018-spain-f...

The International Football Association Board (IFAB) is looking to change rules this weekend to allow for Video Assisted Refereeing (VAR) to be used in the 2018 World Cup. This possible change has been highly criticized by fans and coaches, including former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who claimed the World Cup is not the place to "experiment." A lot of the outrage comes from yesterday's embarrassing controversy during the Tottenham-Rochdale match in the fifth-round of the FA Cup. The use of VAR generated nearly nine minutes of stoppage time, throwing off the players, coaches, refs, and fans. The use of video technology is to close help eliminate game-changing mistakes by referees, but some are arguing that those mistakes and emotion is what makes football, football. Fans also fear that FIFA wants to use VAR as another revenue stream by sponsoring each review, only further disrupting the game and angering the fans. Share your thoughts about the use of VAR technology...

The longtime front-runner to get the bid to host the 2026 World Cup has been North America. The combination of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico proves to be able to sustain such a large event with plentiful up-to-date infrastructure and, if given the bid, can really help for football to solidify itself in the U.S. sports market. It seems like a no-brainer going against the North African country of Morocco for the bid, but there's one thing that sticks out as a huge negative for North America: the Trump narrative. The North American bid officials have had a hard time deflecting the anti-American sentiment from across the world due to stereotype-perpetuating comments often made by President Trump. This makes FIFA officials second guess their once easy decision and question whether or not America will be able to unite foreign worlds together during the World Cup. Morocco is in a better place than ever to receive their long-awaited bid. After the World Cup was successfully held in So...