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- [00:01]
Michelle Bernstein
Mic check 12 Are we recording? Hi, I'm Michelle Bernstein, an award winning chef, restaurateur and mom. I have a lot on my plate including my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. That's why I was prescribed Cosentyx. It helps me move better.
- [00:19]
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- [00:56]
Michelle Bernstein
Your rheumatologist about Cosentyx.
- [01:01]
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- [01:31]
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- [02:27]
Matt Slater
Hello, I'm Matt Slater. Welcome to the Insiders, the new Athletic FC show where we're going to dig into the biggest off pitch stories that are going to shape next summer's World Cup. Now I'm in the uk, where it is cold but bright. And joining me from New York is my pen pal, Adam Crafton, or Crafton, as I'd say. I'm from Essex. Adam, before we get stuck in, we should probably explain what we're trying to do here.
- [02:55]
Adam Crafton
Yeah, well, I guess the World cup is going to be the biggest show in town in 2026, and we want to give people more of an insight into the money, the power, the politics, the big figures, the storylines that are going to shape this tournament. We'll look at off the field stuff in terms of all the people you would expect, whether it's peace prizes or Gianni Infantino or all of those different controversial issues that you get around. World Cups ticket prices, the cost of this tournament, which we will go into in detail in this tournament. And then also, I think we're going to look at some of the big names on the pitch at different times as well. The commercial impact of a Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi in this tournament, some of the stories around some of the smaller nations, whether that's Haiti or Cape Verde, and some of the challenges that their fans are going to encounter during this tournament. I'm excited about this. There's so many things I think that are going to come up. I feel like we will have a script prepared about what to talk about and then something like a Peace Prize will come along. That means we have to rip it up and start all over again. And even just this morning, you know, we're kind of learning details of some of the ticket prices that could be inflicted upon traveling England fans at this tournament. So there's loads to talk about and excited to get into it.
- [04:12]
Matt Slater
Well done. That was a great sell. So look, for this episode, I suppose we have to start with the most remarkable two hours of television I've seen for a long time. Like Wayne Gretzky's pronunciations of countries was one of my favorite bits. Kevin Hart, Funny Man. I was waiting for the jokes. You were there in the room. Maybe they didn't translate. I don't know. Village People, of course, the Donald, the Peace Prize. You were there, Adam. I was watching on telly. What was the weirdest thing you saw?
- [04:42]
Adam Crafton
It was kind of weird from the moment that Kevin Haw and Heidi Klum walked out. Cause it was as if they were dressed for different events in the nicest possible way. And Kevin, Haughty, to me, almost seemed scared, actually, to make jokes in the room. It was almost like there's jokes that could be made here. But the funny jokes would be at the expense of either the organizers or the most powerful politician in the world, President Trump, who was obviously presiding over it. So the funny jokes couldn't really be made. You then had Rio Ferdinand presiding over it all. That was also quite odd. I mean, it's hard to get away from this extraordinary Peace prize that was dreamed up about a month before the actual event itself, this FIFA Peace Prize that.
- [05:28]
Matt Slater
Well, you were at that event, weren't you, when it, when it, when it sort of was first mooted.
- [05:31]
Adam Crafton
Yeah. So the background to this was actually a event in Miami at the home of the Miami Heat NBA team, the Kaseya Center. And November 5th, I went to this conference because the lineup was just quite insane. Really. It was. President Trump was giving a speech to this conference and there was probably around 10 to 15,000 people there. He might say 150,000. From my memory, it was around 10 to 15. They were moving. They were moving. But there was other people on the list that day where you had Lionel Messi did a Q and A, Infantino did a Q and A. You had other kind of billionaire hedge fund people talking throughout the day as well. And suddenly on this day, where both Trump and Infantino would be on the same stage, though at different times, FIFA announced that they're going to give a peace prize and nobody knew about that.
- [06:24]
Matt Slater
Well, hold on. Wasn't crucially, wasn't there a real Peace Prize winner there?
- [06:29]
Adam Crafton
Yes, sorry, I forgot. The Venezuelan, Maria Corina Machado, who is a politician slash activist, democracy activist in Venezuela, won the Nobel Peace Prize, I would say, ahead of Donald Trump, but like, I'm not sure, the committee, it was almost like a campaign by, you know, the people around Trump for him to win it. And by the way, that included Gianni Infantino, who the day before the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, actually went onto Instagram and said, he deserves it. Infantino had, for reasons nobody's quite sure, been at the peace signing summit in Egypt maybe a couple of weeks before. So he had, if you like, born witness to some of what had gone on around the Israel, Gaza, you could say ceasefire, peace plan. However, people, you know, describe it at this stage. So it was trailed on that day that they were both together in Miami. And then on the stage in Miami, Infantino's actually asked directly by the interviewer, you know, is Trump going to win this? And he smiles and he says, you will see, and he says, you know, this is some, you know, we want to give it to someone who is fighting for peace, who Making the world a better place. And then also goes on to this extraordinary, impassioned defense of the Trump presidency, where he's basically saying, you know, it looks like things are going well, people should get behind him. You know, as far as I know, in the United States of America, you know, it's a democracy, and, you know, he's simply doing what he was voted in to do from people I speak to within FIFA, I think there was a recognition that day that that was an intervention by Infantino that could cause him trouble down the line. You know, that was gonna.
- [08:11]
Matt Slater
Yeah, well, I definitely want to come back to that because you. Because you had a very good story this week about criticism of whether Infertino, FIFA have crossed a line there, have crossed one of their own lines. But we don't want to talk too much about this, but I do think it was the most remarkable bit of the draw. And that was like the first half an hour, really, where you had Infantino and Trump. You had this long kind of video to explain all the wars that he stopped. You then had, like, a kind of commendation type speech. There was a medal, there was a certificate, there was a very ugly trophy. And then the biggest surprise of all was Donald Trump himself giving a little speech and being the only person all evening to stick to the time slot. So, you know, how did that go down? Is it what you expected?
- [09:02]
Adam Crafton
It was really interesting because I went for drinks after the event with some people who don't normally follow FIFA and World cup and soccer and all of that sort of stuff, and they were like, wow, that was insane. That was all insane. And I feel like probably you as well, like, we're almost desensitized at times to some of this FIFA stuff that we see around tournaments, around draws. And also, as someone who's now been in the states for 18 months, and I've had to watch a few of these kind of, like, Trump Infantino news briefings from the Oval Office. This is how it goes. This is how they talk about each other. So nothing about it was overly surprising. I did find the Thief of video pretty odd. That was almost, again, above and beyond really what it needed to be. You're right about the time limit. I remember a couple of days before, someone had sent me a draft of the running order, and it had the FIFA Peace Prize and the handover, the entire thing to be about three minutes. And I was nervous about writing it because I've never seen trump stick to 2 minutes, 3 minutes. It's not what he does. He was the only person in the whole event that stuck to the limit. And also actually he was relative to some of the other speeches that we see him give, I thought he was pretty disciplined by his own standards.
- [10:22]
Commercial Voice
Yes.
- [10:22]
Adam Crafton
You know, I know, you know, he.
- [10:23]
Matt Slater
Did it way more disciplined than Infantino.
- [10:26]
Adam Crafton
Right. So he didn't say the stuff that you would expect him to say that he actually normally says about the World Cup. So his normal thing is, I was the president when we won the bid in 2018, then they stole the election. Other recollections may vary. Yes, indeed. And then he says, you know, no one thought that I could be the president for this World cup as a result of it, because people thought it would be consecutive terms or not at all. So he didn't include any of that. He didn't sort of, you know, refer to Biden as the worst president in history. He didn't go on a rant about opponents or anything like that. It was a pretty kind of like dignified acceptance speech. But I guess when you are talked about, that's what I mean.
- [11:07]
Matt Slater
FIFA had already called him 45 and 47 about seven times.
- [11:11]
Adam Crafton
Exactly. FIFA was so involved.
- [11:13]
Matt Slater
All of his talking points about the wars were in the video. Exactly.
- [11:16]
Adam Crafton
He didn't need to say it because FIFA spoke to him and for him. And I think that is kind of the crux of the contentious debate. And you know, what we've seen this week, within what, three days of the prize being given, and I think it was probably in the works for a couple of weeks before that. You saw this kind of advocacy NGO human rights group FairSquare, who were based in the UK, submit an eight page letter to FIFA's ethics committee. The obvious joke to make here is FIFA has an ethics committee. Who knew about that. Right. That seems to have been the top.
- [11:52]
Matt Slater
Comment on the report with their Peace Prize committee.
- [11:55]
Adam Crafton
Yeah. And I think it has representation from Rwanda, China. There's lots of jokes, there's lots of jokes that we could make. But FIFA does have an ethics committee and there are, I guess, ways to make grievances, complaints to it submitted. And essentially what Fairsquare argued is FIFA in its statutes, in its code of ethics, you know, says that FIFA has a commitment to being politically neutral. Now, while they say, you know, that they recognize you have to have a relationship with a host country and you have to tread a certain line while attempting to hold mega events within different territories, they argue that, as you just said, that a line was crossed. So there's other things they raised. They also raised the internal process Another thing that we reported on that basically no one at FIFA knew anything, appear to know anything about this prize, you know, until it came out in a press release. So that includes vice presidents, that includes the FIFA council. So that's the normal body that decisions would be made through.
- [12:54]
Matt Slater
And he said on stage, we're going to do this again. This is an annual prize. So he's created this, I think, very clear conflict of interest. He's opening himself up to charges of hypocrisy. Anytime FIFA tries to slap around, you know, an African FA or an Asian FA for a government interfering in the running of football, my word, I mean, you know, what have you done? So, look, I don't want to talk too much about Trump, because we will get accused of derangement syndrome. I suppose the important thing to say here is that the best story was the draw. Still, it is still, at the end of the day, who are we playing, what order are we playing them in, and are we in the Group of Death? I mean, those are the things I think most football fans are still talking about. Just.
- [13:44]
Adam Crafton
I think that's true. And I think the other thing, it was interesting that Fox announced record views for this World cup draw, that it was the most that it had ever been watched. That's Fox Sports, I should say. It wasn't on Fox News, though it was subsequently reported on Fox News for obvious reasons relating to the Peace Prize. But I do think that Infantino appears to have made a calculation that Trump, love him or loathe him, brings viewers and viewers increases revenue and all different things around that. And it also increases just recognition across the United States. You know, it is very hard in the United States to create national stories that the whole country is talking about. There is only one thing. Well, there's two things. There's a Super bowl and there's Trump. Occasionally a World Series or college Final Fours or whatever will come along every so often. But Trump is the thing that people are talking about every single day. And if he can get Trump talking about the World cup, he appears to think that is a net win and he is kind of prepared to take the flag. And I think he also sees what happens when Trump isn't on your side and the difficulties that that can present. And I think we've talked about this a little bit in other podcasts and in reporting. But, you know, the threats that Trump has made about relocating games from cities, we're now at a point where fans are buying flights, hotels, match tickets. And when I then interview this week, Andrew Giuliani the executive director of the White House task force appointed by Trump for the World Cup. And I said to him, fans are spending money, right, that they've saved up for a long time to buy tickets, to buy flights. Can you give them a guarantee this stuff isn't going to be moved? And they still can't do that. They're still saying the President won't take anything off the table. The President wants leverage. He wants these cities to get into shape for whatever safety, security concerns they supposedly have. And for all of FIFA's basically ass licking, they still can't get the White House to guarantee to visitors and domestic and Americans traveling and spending money that the actual games will take place where they say they're going to take place. You know, so that's before you get on to all the different stuff around ice and National Guard and all that stuff. That in itself I think shows just how delicate FIFA having to be on, on some of this stuff.
- [16:16]
Matt Slater
Well, it'd be very nicely teed up. Some questions I wanted to ask about your chat with Andrew Giuliani.
- [16:23]
Adam Crafton
I'm learning Segways.
- [16:24]
Matt Slater
That was a great segue. Way better than, than any of the Lauryn Hill or Rio stuff. So let's just explain who Andrew Giuliani is. People might recognize the surname. They might remember the slightly weird press conference, another weird press conference where he was announced. Who is he, what's his role and what did he make of the draw?
- [16:43]
Adam Crafton
So Andrew Giuliani is the son of Rudy Giuliani, who at one point was a highly respected New York City mayor, went on to be, let's put it diplomatically, a contentious former attorney of Trump, became very in the Trump world, to put it mildly. Andrew Giuliani, through his father, I think, has known President Trump for a long time. He had a role in the White House in the first term under Trump. And when they set up this White House task force, which actually chaired by Trump, vice chaired by J.D. vance, J.D. vance, by the way. I don't think he was actually at the draw last week despite lots of other members of the cabinet being there. I didn't see a photograph of him there. And Giuliani's role is essentially the executive director. So he is running the day to day operations. And his job is kind of to be a vehicle between the 11 different US host cities who are kind of subsidiaries of FIFA during this tournament on things like security and planning and logistics and all of that kind of pretty important stuff, to be blunt, that you need to run this World cup because this is not going to be easy. You know, you're dealing with city law enforcement, state law enforcement. You've got federal oversight of all of that. And there's a lot of tension at the moment between the federal security forces and state and locals in some of these cities, you know, particularly around things like I. So they need to be talking to each other. So Giuliani has kind of been in this role now since May interviewed him after the draw. He. It's a difficult interview to do because you get the sense that probably some readers just want you to tell him he's a bad person. Right. And say, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad. Why is Trump doing this, this, this, this, this. And I kind of was trying to strike a balance between getting as much insight as possible from this, from the draw and how things are working on a day to day basis, and also just a bit of insight into why Trump appears to care about this thing. You know, soccer is not the biggest sport in America. Why does he care about this thing? And then we also got onto the draw itself, and just on the Peace prize, I actually asked him whose idea this was. Was this something suggested by the White House? Was this something FIFA came up with? And he was very, very categorical to say this isn't from the White House. FIFA thought this was a great idea. I guess it was one of those where he was never going to say the White House came up with this and told FIFA to do it. But it really does appear that the White House didn't have a role and it was just FIFA were desperate to please their master.
- [19:18]
Matt Slater
Let's do Trump first. We know he likes golf. We know he tried to buy, you know, an NFL team. We know he even tried to launch a rival to the Tour de France at one point in the States. You know, he likes sport. You know, he goes to sport. He's been to baseball recently, he's been to tennis recently. Does he have a clue, does he like soccer that he's now calling football? And then also, how about Giuliani himself? What, what is there any passion, I think, with Giuliani?
- [19:46]
Adam Crafton
He's certainly passionate about his vision of the United States of America, put it that way. And I think he recognizes that this is a platform to showcase that to the world. And he's very unapologetic about that. He gave an answer that was pretty tub thumping of America because next year is the 250th anniversary as well. And he said President Trump represents that. And he represents the fact that as Americans, we don't have to apologize anymore for whatever imperfections may exist in our country's history. We can look at what America has done for Western civilization and truly celebrate that American greatness. Now, that is appears to be what he sees this World cup as an opportunity to promote. I guess that kind of like backlash against wokeism, that backlash against reflecting on America's history. You know, I think America's history, I don't want to put words in his mouth here. Appears to be innuendo for the way that people were treated in the past. Right. Let's be clear about that. So very unapologetic about that. I asked him, is there a concern that these events are becoming very MAGA heavy? Half the country, or just under half the country in the last election, isn't so keen on that. Is that going to turn Americans away from it? And his view basically appears to be no, that people should get behind this and people should celebrate American greatness together. And then on just on the question of President Trump's support for soccer, support for sport in general, you know, we know he's a big, he's been around kind of the US Open for many times over the years. Baseball, I think he is a, he is a sports fan. He is interested in sports. He likes money, he likes power. It feeds into all of those different things. He likes anything, to be blunt, that has big ratings. That's how he sees the world. It's through numbers and ratings. And the World cup ticks that box. But on the question of soccer, Giuliani gave this fascinating answer, which is basically, it's about his son, Barron Trump. His son has kind of taught him that soccer's a thing. And he kind of gave this very fawning answer, which is kind of like, you know, President Trump's a great father. They have a beautiful bond, and soccer is one of the things that they've bonded over. And Barron appears to have persuaded his dad a little bit like he persuaded him of the merits of TikTok during the last election, that the World cup could be a thing as well.
- [22:10]
Matt Slater
Do you think it's possible at this stage that they will move games away from, let's say Democrat blue cities to more MAGA friendly red cities? I mean, first of all, how many big cities are actually red leaning? Is this even a thing? Is it even possible?
- [22:30]
Adam Crafton
I mean, even Miami is now, there's gone Democrat this week as well. So even some of those places you would think could never be blue. I don't think that's going to happen. But I'm also conscious of I don't want to speak for that. And then people book their travel and say the athletic said on a podcast. But I would be very, very shocked if things move. I think it's kind of what Giuliani said. It's leverage. It's leverage. It's a threat that can be made. It can make headlines. Look, I think if someone asks Trump, even in five months time, I think he will still say, well, they better be keeping their cities safe or we'll have to muck at putting it in a different place because he can't help himself. That's how he answers these questions. But the reality is that FIFA's contract is with the host sitters, it's not with the federal government. So they would be entering all sorts of legal nightmares. I think if they even considered attempting to move these events. And also a lot of local taxpayer dollars, both city, federal, private donations, stadium owners have gone into making these events possible and it would have to be a decree by the President for that to happen. So I would put the chance of that at very slim to none. But let's see.
- [23:46]
Matt Slater
Well, there's been a decree from the producers that we need to take a break, Adam, and there will be a legal nightmare if we don't squeeze in some commercial messages. So let's do that now. Foreign.
- [24:02]
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- [26:29]
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- [27:07]
Adam Crafton
We had a hydration break.
- [27:10]
Matt Slater
Oh okay. Yes indeed.
- [27:11]
Adam Crafton
One of the stories this week, just before we get on to the next big thing we want to talk about is tickets. But this hydration break that's been announced three minutes in each half of the game. FIFA say there is a player welfare argument for this, but it is going to be happening even in the games where it's not hot so therefore means there Must be a commercial incentive as well. So if you are a Fox Sports in the States or ITV in the uk, how do you think these three minutes might be used, Matt?
- [27:40]
Matt Slater
Well, see, I wonder if this is some sort of quid pro quo. Right, so we've got Trump talking about renaming soccer football and thinking of a new name for the NFL. Maybe just the NFL. I don't know. The whole sport becomes the NFL and maybe the trade is that we accept quarters. Right, so then that's almost fair. I suspect broadcasters around the world who are not funded in the unusual way that we fund the BBC, well, fill it with adverts like we do, because they're sensible and it's got to be sustainable and you've got to pay for this show. So, yeah, adverts.
- [28:15]
Adam Crafton
Do you think those adverts will cut away completely from the game? We've never really seen this in the uk where you could. In the States you can have an advert.
- [28:24]
Matt Slater
No, that's really interesting.
- [28:25]
Adam Crafton
That can come on the screen but you could still see the field. It's almost like a bit of a split screen. Do you think that's something ITV might or should be looking at?
- [28:35]
Matt Slater
I hope so. I mean that's going to sound weird. Like I, like I, I think this is a great idea. I, I don't, I think this is going to happen and I, and I do worry more about the precedent than, than what we do for this one tournament. Well, you're right. In certain places it's going to be hot down South Mexico, the places without a roof, it's going to be hot. And we also know that some of the kickoff times are going to be middle of the day because you've got to worry about the audience in Europe. So for example, the finals at 3 o' clock in New Jersey without a roof, that's going to be hot. So yeah, I get the idea. I, I do think because we are seeing more and more interesting ways of fitting commercial messages into everything we watch than just cutting away to, I don't know, they probably fit two ads. You know, if they, if they do sort of chop down versions of them or maybe one long one. I don't know. I, I do think you write almost like a read through you box off the screen. You know, maybe this hydration break is brought to you by. You know, there's, there's things they can do that are a bit more inventive than just a car advert. We'll see.
- [29:42]
Adam Crafton
Right.
- [29:42]
Matt Slater
You know, you raise a good point and I don't think any of the broadcasters or commercial people are upset by this news at all.
- [29:49]
Adam Crafton
And talking of big money and commercial opportunities, let's talk about the cost, because I think this is going to be the thing that shocks many people in the next few months. Not just how expensive America is in general, but also the ticket prices and the way that FIFA have priced these tickets and also the pricing model they've used. For those who don't know, they're using a dynamic variable pricing model, which basically means is based on supply and demand. If a lot of people want the ticket, the prices go up. If not so many people want the ticket, they go down, as they did during the club World Cup. So that's the idea. It turns out the World Cup's pretty popular, so the prices are going up. And on top of that, FIFA are taking on their own resale platform because resale is something that is rife in America. It's not just unique to this tournament, to be fair, but on FIFA's own resale platform, they're almost getting paid, well, three times because they get the original ticket and then every time the ticket's resold, they get 15% buyer's fee and also seller's fee. So that is kind of leading to a hell of a lot of revenue for FIFA. But where does this leave fans, Matt?
- [31:02]
Matt Slater
Well, again, you sort of summed up nicely some of the bigger issues that I think most people will be aware of. Right. I think people have heard or read about the variable pricing idea. Of course, airlines have been doing it. It's basically the Uber model. It became a core celeb in, in the uk, largely because of Oasis, pop group, indie band whatever, who came back and have done a, you know, a revival reunion tour and sold an absolute shed load of tickets. And lots of middle aged people like me who remember them the first time around, spent about three, four hours on our phones trying to get the tickets, only to be find out that, hold on a minute, I thought they were, I thought they were 80 quid, they're now £800. How did this happen? Yeah, it's because of us. We were all of us on our phones and the price went up anyway. So I think we've got our heads around dynamic pricing. I think it is shocking, I think for a football tournament. It is a departure and it's quite interesting to me that UEFA, whilst all this was going off in the States, were pumping out messages about their ticketing plans for the Euros in the UK and Ireland, where they're going not to have Dynamic pricing. And they are going to have set prices. You know, I think that's quite interesting approach. Anyway, so all of that has been playing out and I think the context is, and you're there, Adam, is that the American sports fan is used to this. You know, American sports fans will pay quite a lot to go. They're also, I don't know if they're comfortable with it, but they're certainly used to it. Dynamic pricing. You know, if my team is doing well, if we're on a playoff run, if someone famous is in town, you know, from the other, from the other team, yeah, this is going to cost me. But if we're not doing very well, we're out of the playoffs. This is a terrible team we're playing. Do you know what? You know, I might take the whole family and the kids and, you know, we'll get, we'll get bargain tickets. And by the way, we're talking about the tickets, but we haven't talked about the car park charge, the food, you know, going to live events, be it sport, music, whatever. It is expensive in the States. It's, you know, that cost of living hoax crisis. No, when it comes to sport, it's real.
- [33:08]
Adam Crafton
Just a super quick one on that. I was a witness to a conversation with some Americans the other day and look, different, Americans will have different views, but the conversation that I bore witness to was basically talking about going to a college football game. And it was going to involve, I won't say the team because it might give it away, but basically a team that wasn't doing very well is now doing very well. And the prices, you know, for tickets and travel were going to be a couple of grand. And one of the people in this conversation said, well, I don't really get the problem. It's simply the price of greatness. We're doing well. It's worth more. And I was like, yeah, but you've been loyal to them through these bad times. Then as soon as they win a few games, you want to charge you a few grand to get in. But it was a really kind of revealing insight into there isn't this offense, this real kind of sense of offense that I think there is perhaps in the UK and in other markets, maybe Germany in particular as well. Equally, I do think it is hitting a point where for many people in the States, going to premium sports games is simply becoming unaffordable. And it's not, you're right, it's not just the tickets. It's the flights, it's the hotel because you can't go to most places in the States without a flight. So it is flights, it's parking, it might be a hire car. The hotels will get onto the hotels. My God, all of this stuff is like coming into one to the point where I was trying to work it out the other day. I was like, I think for even a three day trip for two people, if you're going to a game and you're booking your hotels this week, I think you're struggling to spend less than 7 or $8,000 for this.
- [34:52]
Matt Slater
Yeah, feels well, right? That's, that's what I hear.
- [34:54]
Adam Crafton
Anecdotally, one of the big things has been ticket prices, hasn't it, for the fans who go to these games normally at tournaments.
- [35:01]
Matt Slater
And they are being consistent here. This is what they've done before. They allocate 8% of the total tickets in any, at any game to each of the participating member associations. So look, just for argument's sake, because it's the one I've been thinking and writing about. In Croatia's first game in Dallas Cowboy Stadium, June 17, 8% for the Croatia, 8% for England. Ring fenced. Now we know that they are there for the general sale. There are four categories, category one, two, three and four, with category one being the premium tickets, lower bowl all the way up to category four. So already people are like, well, okay, well how many Category 4 tickets are there? Perishingly few. Right to the point where some people are wondering if they even exist. So mainly they're in categories 1, 2 and 3. So the first thing that all the participating member associations have been waiting for is their prices, right? Are they going to be dynamically priced? No. Are they going to be exactly the same price as if you like the kind of domestic audience are paying again? No. And what are their splits? What are their category splits and where in the stadium are they going to be? So these are. We're talking about like your traveling fans. You're talking about the people, the England fans who turn up with flags, the people that go to all the members of the England Travel Club. They're all vetted, they're all safe. You know, they've been to the qualifiers, they've been around Europe. You know, they bring the noise in the same way that the Dutch bring the noise. The French, the Spanish. These are your most loyal traveling fans. Someone's been waiting for FIFA to announce his information and it hasn't come. It's way later than it's ever been. So as we speak right now, Adam, they are being told right now. It's Thursday. They're being told now. Some of them have already been told. So this morning, the Croatian FA was able to put up its information to its fans. Because today, as in the 11th, is the window opens for these traveling supporter allocations, and it's open for about a month. And what Croatian fans have been told is the cheapest ticket for that game against England, the cheapest ticket is about $256. The most expensive ticket is $700. The expensive one is the one immediately behind the goal. There is no category four. There's only three categories. So $700 to sit behind the goal for that one game. Okay. Then their next two group games, I think, dropped to 500. $500 right now. The other thing that FIFA are doing now, to be fair, they've always done this is they're saying if you want knockout tickets as part of this kind of traveling supporter idea, you've got to book them all now. You've got to book them all the way to the final, and as you get knocked out, return them to us. We'll pay you back, minus a fee, $50 fee. So the cheapest way for a Croatian is over $4,000 for those cheap tickets, and it's $8,000 for the more expensive tickets. This is already the most expensive World cup by a mile. By a mile. The cheapest ticket at the euros in Germany, what they called their fam first ticket was 30 Euros, 26 pounds. It's just stunning. Now, just before we came on, football supporters Europe, who are the kind of, you know, they're sort of a lobby group. They. All the supporters groups across Europe is kind of a network umbrella kind of organization, have actually called for the ticket sales to be halted for these member association allocations. For all the fascinating to stop selling these tickets. Don't sell them. They're extortionate. The language is very strong. They have been kind of gearing themselves up for this, and I think now they have seen these numbers and they are shocked. I suspect no one will halt the sales. And I don't know if there's much that can be done now, because I think the member associations have privately been sort of saying to FIFA, look, can we just pump the brakes a little bit here on our traveling fans? Now, whether that message got through at all, I don't know. But we're now seeing the numbers, and the numbers are big. And what I think will happen is I don't think the allocations will be taken up. I think England fans will go maybe to the group stage. Sorry, the warm up games. They might hang around for that first game. Then I think most of them will come home and they'll go to Americans. That's fine. But my concern then is the spectacle. The fans who sing, the fans who know the words, the fans who lift the team. They ain't coming.
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Adam Crafton
Wait, we're going on tour?
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Thanks, random singing people.
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- [41:51]
Adam Crafton
It was interesting when I was speaking to Giuliani this week, he was saying that they think most people who go to this tournament will go for around 10 days and will go to maybe two or three games and they'll almost treat it a little bit like you would treat a holiday to the States. You know, that that's probably the most that people can really afford. There aren't many people. If I was just thinking of a bit. If I'm trying to play slightly devil's advocate, take a Croatian, how many Croatians could afford to spend, what, 50 odd days? Not 50 odd. How long's the tournament for? Something like that? Yeah. Over 35 days in the United States during the most expensive month there's probably ever been in the United States. So I'm not sure how many people would actually try and do that. But it's not the point, right? The point is it shouldn't be that expensive. The whole process actually of this ticketing thing, I think it's been exploitative from the start. You know, you had these pre sales, it was a Visa pre sale. Then there was the right to buy stuff, which I think there's a lot more to come out of this stuff, by the way, which this was. Basically you could buy the right to buy a ticket. I mean, have you ever heard, normally you go to something, you just buy a ticket. This was buying the right to be able to buy a ticket. And even then, I don't think you could guarantee, you know, which tickets you would get. This is one of the most famous quotes Don Garber ever said. He was talking about people from soccer coming into the United States and treating it as an atm. And I do think that's what FIFA are doing here. The important thing to remember is FIFA, they get all the ticketing revenue, all the parking revenue, all of the sponsorship in stadia goes to FIFA. You know, we talk about the. This is. We're going to do this on another podcast because it's. I think it's a bugbear of yours and it's a bugbear of mine. But this whole economic impact stuff where we're told that host cities and America is going to make $40 billion, well, maybe just through hotel prices. Alone.
- [43:53]
Matt Slater
Well, we all do it. We all do it. We're not picking on America on these. These economic impact assessments are a racket around the world.
- [44:00]
Adam Crafton
The point I'm making here is FIFA are extracting so much here from this thing they're hosting in the United States. And I struggle, I'm not entirely convinced that America is going to get back out of it. What it's being claimed that it will, we will see. And just with the ticket prices, you know, I think what you're now going to see is a lot of tension between local supporters. You know, so those England fans clubs for example, and the English Federation, you know, because they're going to be saying things like, well, why aren't you fighting harder for us?
- [44:31]
Matt Slater
Yeah, he started already, right?
- [44:32]
Adam Crafton
So Debbie Hewitt I think now is the FIFA, who's the chairman of the English fa, is now a FIFA vice president. I think that's a role of significance. Now if we're saying FIFA vice presidents and council don't get the option to do anything and fight for anything and make decisions, that's a different story. But some of them are going to have to start talking about that or they have to share the responsibility of being part of FIFA. And I think that is a conversation that's going to start. The other thing I do wonder is just whether, as you say, some of this inventory just won't be taken. And then do prices drop?
- [45:04]
Matt Slater
Maybe is the smart thing for local fans?
- [45:06]
Adam Crafton
Maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is the smart thing for people to wait?
- [45:09]
Matt Slater
Yeah, possibly. Look, I think that's a good point and that's, that's, you know, people want to sort of take that chance. They, they might. I think the thing that most upsets me about this debate, and it hasn't really been a debate, right? This is a diktat, right? We are waiting for FIFA to release information. The FIFA defense to all this would be, look, we are a non profit. Everything we make we put into development of the game, okay? And the Men's World cup is our feast. You know, this, this is what drives us for four years. And that's certainly, you can see that in there. That's how they do their accounts. They roll on like a four year accounting principle. And you know, the other tournaments they do don't make so much money. And until very recently they didn't really have a good club tournament. They've now got the Club World cup which they would like to, you know, blah, blah, blah. But anyway, it's the Men's World cup so they say we are Behold, you know, we have to. Our stakeholders, our shareholders, if you like, are all the member associations. And we. We raise as much money as we can at this thing, and then we hand it all over to them. I'll happily acknowledge that. And I'll happily acknowledge there are good people doing interesting bits of work and coaching courses and training referees up and building pitches, and it's all happening. The stakeholder, who's never talked about, and I would argue is the most underrated, undervalued, but possibly the most important of all is the fan. Because otherwise, what is football? What makes the World cup the World cup is that the world cares and that a lot of people go and they make a noise and they bring their national cultures to these places, and we all sit. The ones that are sitting at home love it. But those people, no one cares about them. FIFA doesn't care. FIFA could easily take a little bit less, and they are being shamed at the moment by UEFA. Now, UEFA get plenty wrong as well, but UEFA at least appear to understand this, that, yes, we probably could charge a bit more, but we won't, because we don't think it's worth it. And we actually think the fan, the traveling fan, is adding to the spectacle. That's what winds me up.
- [47:11]
Adam Crafton
No, I completely get it and agree. The big defense, as you say, that FIFA will make is they're a nonprofit. All of their revenues get shared among the soccer ecosystem. Now, I would say you are picking on the wrong people to take that money from or to take this much money from. Take, for example, the Club World Cup. Last summer, they had to convince these big clubs in Europe with a $1 billion prize pool for the richest clubs in the world, often for not playing very well for three weeks in the Club World Cup. And they had to do that because the tournament had no heritage, no history, no kind of normal kind of allure that a World cup does compared to a club World Cup. And therefore, the 1 billion prize money largely was distributed along some of the richest clubs in the world. Now, that money could have gone to federations around the world, right? But then you wouldn't have had them competing. But we don't pay Portugal and Argentina what we paid Real Madrid and Bayern Munich or PSG to compete in the World cup like we did in the. In the Club World Cup. So I think that's where it falls down. You know, you're taking money from the wrong people, essentially, in order to do this. And also, I think they sometimes talk about soccer development in nations as though soccer is A government in itself. Right. The world will keep going. If the Slovakian association get 700,000 a year instead of a million a year, the world will keep turning. It will be okay. You know, it is not a kind of like a humanitarian impact thing that is going on here. It's very nice. It's important. We want football to develop, but it doesn't need this much. And there is a, you know, agreed element to it which is all, you know, which all again comes back to Gianni Infantino. One member, one vote, right. When it comes back around again, he needs these federations to get as much money as possible.
- [49:04]
Matt Slater
No 100%, Adam. Well, look, you and I could bang on and we will hours and we will, but we're going to do it in bite sized chunks. We've been banging on so long here that the light, my little fancy light here that illuminates me has gone off. So I think that's a sign. We'll be back soon. I think, Adam, you should have the final word because I opened it up. So I think I'm going to say goodbye and I'll leave it to you now to end this.
- [49:28]
Adam Crafton
Well, much of what we've discussed would obviously be great to talk with FIFA about in depth. And you know, I think, Matt, as you've discovered over recent years, kind of access to the president Gianni Infantino has become an increasingly diminished commodity in recent years. He didn't do any non rights holder questions at all during the draw week, which is pretty remarkable, you know, given that, you know, they're expecting all the host cities to do stuff and take questions on all of these contentious matters. Infantino didn't do anything. I think he did a small bit with Fox and Telemundo who are rights holders, but even that, I mean, I've barely seen anything from and I think that's a shame. We would welcome him on the podcast at any point whatsoever. We would, we would love that. Right.
- [50:17]
Matt Slater
Well, goodbye everybody.
- [50:18]
Adam Crafton
Goodbye.
- [50:24]
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Adam Crafton
Up and open the door.
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