Ahead of the 76th FIFA Congress in Vancouver, Canada, the FIFA Council has approved a historical expansion of the men’s World Cup kitty to nearly USD1 billion.
This comes just 44 days before the 2026 edition kicks off, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Also adopted are decisions that single yellow cards will be cancelled after the group stages and upon conclusion of the quarter finals, and straight sending off for players walking off the pitch in protest and players covering the mouth when addressing others during confrontations.
“Given the commercial success of FIFA’s flagship men’s tournament, the FIFA Council agreed to increase the resources to be distributed to all 48 participating teams by a further 15%, totaling USD871 million,” said the world governing body in a statement.
Solid financial position
The increase means participating teams will receive USD10 million for qualification, and USD2.5 million for preparation. There will be “additional team contributions” dubbed “subsidies for team delegation costs and increased team ticketing allocations totaling over USD16 million”.
According to the council, the balance of revenue for the current financial period will be redistributed among the 211 Member Associations. FIFA’s financial period is a four-year cycle between two men’s World Cup tournaments.
“FIFA is proud to be in its most solid financial position ever, enabling us to help all our Member Associations in an unprecedented way,” stated President Infantino.
“This is one more example of how FIFA’s resources are reinvested back into the game.”
At the same time, the Afghan women’s refugee team will now participate in international competitions following the adoption of the amended FIFA Governance Regulations.
Infantino said the initiative is a deliberate attempt “to enable FIFA Member Associations that may not be able to register a national or representative team for a FIFA competition” to do so.
Other matters approved were the staging of various tournaments and competitions, including the 2029 Under-20 World Cup which will be hosted jointly by Armenia and Georgia, while the US will host the final phase of the 2027 FIFA Women’s Champions Cup in Miami.
This year’s Under-17 World Cup will take place in Qatar from 19 November to 13 December.
Meanwhile, the 2027 men’s international match calendar will now include respective dates for the Asian Cup, Concacaf Gold Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations.
