“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 men’s 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. The size of this summer’s 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 football’s governing body.The men’s World Cup has long been the jewel in FIFA’s crown, a fact even a passing glance at the organisation’s business bears out. FIFA’s 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 men’s World Cup in, it makes that all back plus extra on top.That has never been more the case than now.FIFA’s 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.FIFA’s 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. FIFA’s 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.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 FIFA’s total income.That total income is on course to double inside a decade.As explained above, FIFA’s earnings are pegged to the men’s 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 year’s expanded Club World Cup, the current cycle is still $400m ahead of its precursors. Against FIFA’s own budgeted figures for the past three years, revenues are $778m ahead of target.FIFA’s single-year revenue record was $5.769billion in 2022, a mark it was budgeting to blitz past in 2026.In fact, we already know it’s done so.At the end of 2025, FIFA’s 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 men’s 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, FIFA’s 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. In the 2000s, those broadcast rights were dominated by European payers, with FIFA’s TV income from football’s 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 FIFA’s 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 network’s 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, beIN’s chairman (and Paris Saint-Germain’s 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 FIFA’s 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 Women’s World Cup that year lagged others noticeably, though time differences — the tournament was hosted by Australia and New Zealand — didn’t help matters.There are causes for concern in other territories, too.FIFA’s 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 Athletic’s 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 FIFA’s 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 Qatar’s offering.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 FIFA’s 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 Infantino’s 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 anyone’s guess, but it is a sure thing they’ll 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 year’s 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.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 FIFA’s 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 FIFA’s 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.Even with that outsourced model, FIFA’s 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 won’t be made clear until next year, but there’s 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 FIFA’s 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.”Adding to FIFA’s 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.“FIFA’s 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 men’s, women’s 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 latter’s 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 Arabia’s state-owned oil business and one of the world’s 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, Lay’s (Walkers in the UK), Lenovo and Verizon. FIFA’s 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.Aramco’s agreement was announced as including “sponsorship rights for multiple events including…FIFA World Cup 2026 and FIFA Women’s 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 won’t 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).