The 2026 World Cup, spread across the United States, Mexico and Canada, is on course to become the most lucrative competition in the history of sport, according to Fifa's own financial reporting. The Guardian has reported the scale of the numbers in detail, drawing on the world governing body's most recent accounts to map out a balance sheet that reflects how profoundly the expanded, 48-team format has reshaped the commercial logic of international football.
Fifa projects total revenues of $13bn across the four-year cycle culminating in this summer's tournament, with almost $9bn of that sum expected to arrive in 2026 alone, according to the Guardian's account of the financial report. The figures represent a substantial upward revision from earlier projections, which Fifa has revised on several occasions over recent years as broadcast rights deals and sponsorship agreements were finalised.
Gianni Infantino, Fifa's president, framed the tournament in characteristically expansive terms at last December's draw, describing it as what the Guardian quoted as "the greatest event that humanity has ever seen". Whether or not the football justifies that billing, the commercial case is harder to dispute. No prior World Cup, Olympic Games, or any other single sporting event has generated revenues on this scale within one cycle.
Yet the Guardian's reporting notes a tension that runs beneath the headline figures. Some of the 48 competing nations have indicated they are struggling to meet the financial demands of participation, a detail that sits uneasily alongside the extraordinary sums flowing into Fifa's accounts. The cost of preparing squads, travelling to a tournament spread across a continent, and meeting the organisational requirements of the competition places considerable strain on football associations whose resources bear little resemblance to those of the governing body itself.
The expanded format, which grew the field from 32 teams for this edition, was always as much a commercial decision as a footballing one. More nations in the draw means more markets engaged, more broadcast territories invested, and more sponsorship categories to sell. The $13bn projection is, in one sense, simply the arithmetic of that calculation made visible.
How the revenues are ultimately distributed — and what proportion reaches the competing associations feeling the financial pressure — will be one of the more consequential questions of the coming months as the tournament approaches.