The release of World Cup tickets last week felt like FIFA finally crossed a line. Not because football has never been expensive before, and not because football’s governing body has ever pretended not to be greedy. But because this is the moment it was confirmed, in black and white, that football fans are no longer the point. In FIFA and Gianni Infantino’s eyes they are nothing more than an inconvenience. A necessary one, admittedly, but an inconvenience nonetheless.
When I first heard the prices, I assumed my ears were on the blink. Hundreds of euros for a group stage match? Nearly €3,500 for the cheapest ticket for the final? Surely this was some sort of sick joke, right?
Absolutely not.
I know the following example is based on rampant optimism, but bear with me: if England were to make it all the way to the final, a total of eight matches now that FIFA has expanded it in pursuit of revenue, it would cost a fan roughly €6,000 just in match tickets.
Then you need to factor in flights to get to North America, flights between the different host cities, accommodation during peak summertime, visas, local transport, food, drink and the cost of taking several weeks off work.
All told, we are talking about, what, €10,000-12,000 to follow your football team at the World Cup? That is no longer an enjoyable sporting pilgrimage for the average fan, it is an unaffordable luxury only open to people whose pockets are deeper than my sense of loathing for FIFA; which is unimaginably deep.
Predictably, the backlash against the pricing was overwhelming and immediate, with FIFA then rushing to try and make amends by creating a much-publicised $60 ‘supporter entry’ ticket as flimsy proof that the World Cup was accessible to ordinary fans.
But that was little more than a desperate attempt to place a sticking plaster on a gaping wound.
Those ‘supporter entry’ tickets exist in vanishingly small numbers, just enough to be technically true, and just enough to be referenced in interviews and press releases. Nowhere near enough to change the reality of trying to attend what was once sold as the game’s most fan-friendly tournament.
FIFA knows the great unwashed are still required because they create the atmosphere that, in turn, makes the television pictures work, which in turn brings in the advertisers. They provide colour, noise and authenticity. But that doesn’t stop this despicable organisation from fleecing them at the same time.
And when it gets to the business end of the tournament, those same fans that have made the whole thing special are expected to step aside for hospitality packages, premium tiers and corporate guests who don’t ask awkward questions about affordability.
Football, under Infantino, is a product first and a culture second. That has been the entire basis of his presidency so far, which makes me wonder, once again, if we didn’t jump out of the frying pan and into the fire when old Sepp Blatter was booted out.
Yes, Blatter was the living embodiment of everything grubby about football’s power brokers. Seventeen long, scandal-filled years of arrogance, misogyny and corruption that left the sport permanently tainted. There’s no revisionism needed there. Blatter was a horrid little man.
But at least, under him, supporters were not bottom of the list of priorities. They were often patronised, frequently had their concerns ignored, but they weren’t exploited and treated like grains of sand in the Vaseline of FIFA’s existence.
Infantino is an egotistical profiteer with delusions of grandeur and an insane sense of self-importance.
Watching him cosy up to Donald Trump was uncomfortable, not because football leaders shouldn’t engage with politicians, but because of the tone, the eagerness, the sense that proximity to power and money matters to him more than protecting the game’s credibility.
Infantino talks endlessly about growth, expansion and record revenues. What he talks about far less is the concept that football belongs to the masses, not the elite. Why? Because in his warped mind, it does belong to the elite.
When the cheapest way to follow your country to a World Cup final costs more than many people earn in six months, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that football fans are no longer being catered for by FIFA. They are being tolerated. And that tolerance comes at a premium most supporters can’t afford.
“Regarding your Blackburn pitch article, it was great to read what you said. It is like you remember the days when we had indirect free kicks for obstruction if you put your body in front of your opponent, without having full control of the ball, and you were penalised if you put a hand on him.
“I watched the 1970 FA Cup final replay between Leeds and Chelsea last week on YouTube and it was reported that one of today’s VAR refs watched the game from start to finish knowing that only one player was booked. He announced that today 10 players would have been sent off.
“I played football in the local leagues in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, and I only played on decent, level pitches a handful of times.
“I had a trial for Lincoln City, so I had one game at Sincil Bank, which I remember was like playing on concrete in the middle but okay up the flanks.
“We all played with our socks over shin pads properly tied up just below the knees. I reinforced mine with carpet underlay, even for five-a-side.
“You are so right. English football was mostly played on mud at all levels, usually in the air with hard, heavy Mitre footballs, and the ball would never run nicely across the surface.
“I know that Brian Clough would deliberately flood the pitch at the Baseball Ground when Derby County hosted teams in the European Cup in the 70s.
“Derby thrived in mud, and used the grass up the touchlines as a launch pad for Alan Hinton to get the ball up to the corner flag and cross the ball into the muddy goalmouth.
And finally, let me take this opportunity to wish you all the merriest of merry Christmases. Hopefully, the big chap with the beard brings you everything you want this festive season – like a new book of excuses for Mikel Arteta, and three points for Wolves.
As for me, there isn’t much on my wish list – just waking up on Christmas morning to find that VAR was all just a bad dream, Infantino has resigned from FIFA, and Sheffield United are top of the Championship.
