World Cup kickoff: Goals, greed, and geopolitics

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SAM BORDEN: To me, the World Cup is, in a lot of ways, the great equalizer amid the massive disparity that exists in the way people live day to day around the world. I like imagining a thing where, for a couple of hours or a couple of weeks or a month, everybody just wants the same thing. Everybody wants a goal. Everybody wants a win. Everybody wants to dream another day about how far they could go. I find some beauty in that, and I like the simplicity it offers.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Sam Borden, global sports correspondent for ESPN and an investigative reporter who helped crack open corruption inside World Cup organizer FIFA. Sam has had an insider’s view on the most impactful storylines and inflection points at World Cups from Brazil to Qatar. Today, we dig into this year’s tournament, which kicks off Thursday, from Team USA’s prospects to controversy around ticket prices and more.

This is part one of our two-part dive into the World Cup. On Friday’s episode, I sit down with U.S. Soccer Federation CEO JT Batson. That conversation will be available exclusively on Rapid Response. So, for Masters of Scale listeners, be sure to click over and listen. For now, enjoy the passion and bite of ESPN’s Sam Borden. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

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Sam, thanks so much for being here.

BORDEN: Thanks for having me, Bob. I appreciate it.

SAFIAN: So, the World Cup is finally upon us, with the U.S. hosting alongside Canada and Mexico. It’s going to be hard to match the drama of the last World Cup, with Lionel Messi leading Argentina to victory. Are you rooting for Argentina to repeat, or are you all USA all the time?

BORDEN: Bob, I would say that the big secret of my life, which I’ll share with you if you promise not to tell anybody else, is that despite being a sports journalist for over 20 years, I am actually not that big a sports fan. I love the drama and the stories and the emotion that go with big-time sporting events, and courage and overcoming adversity. But I have to say that I am not particularly invested one way or the other in what team wins or loses.

I do have a little bit of a soft spot for France because we lived in France for a few years, and my girls got into the French national team. But generally speaking, I root for games to end on time and for me to get home as quickly as I can.

Copy LinkInside the business of the World Cup

SAFIAN: Well, you’ve covered global soccer as a game and as a business across 40-some countries. So I want to ask you about some of the societal and cultural impacts that swirl around this year’s games. First, though, have you seen Nike’s new Rip the Script video for the World Cup, the star-studded video? Have you seen it yet?

BORDEN: No, I don’t think I’ve seen that one, but it is really interesting to see how invested the business world gets in soccer every four years, particularly in this country, where for the intervening four years, it’s a little bit like the Olympics. For a month every four years, it’s the biggest thing in the world. You see all of these activations and corporate opportunities around this sport that, for the other three years and 11 months, often struggles to make the same kind of impact.

SAFIAN: Yeah. The business of the World Cup is real for sponsors, for sports brands, for media companies, and for athletes, too. There’s a lot of money at stake.

BORDEN: Yeah, no question. It’s funny, in meetings we’ve had at ESPN, we’ve talked a lot about what we’re calling four-year fans. And I include my wife and many of my friends in this category. They’re going to be locked in. When the U.S. is playing on Friday in Los Angeles against Paraguay, they’re going to be locked in on that game like there’s nothing else happening in the world. But if you were to ask them literally a month from now, “Hey, what about the U.S. Soccer team?” the recall and the ability to speak intelligently about that team would not exist at all.

SAFIAN: And if the U.S. team doesn’t perform that well, will the World Cup then have to fight for attention in the U.S.? Because it’s not a sport that’s traditionally embraced here the way basketball and baseball and other sports have been.

BORDEN: For sure. I think you’ve seen over the last 20 years, the last generation or so, a very steady rise in terms of interest and TV ratings. But there’s also no question that, particularly for this World Cup, where it’s taking place in North America, how the U.S. does will drive the level of history it makes in terms of ratings and interest.

If the U.S. can get beyond what they’ve typically done, which would be a round-of-16 appearance, and make a quarterfinal in a home World Cup, I think you’re going to see some astronomical viewing numbers and engagement numbers. If they go out in the group stage, it’s going to be a big bummer for the entire tournament. There’s no question.

Copy LinkThe relationship between the U.S., Mexico & Canada

SAFIAN: This year’s World Cup has this novel three-country hosting plan across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The relationships between these countries right now are a little tense in terms of tariffs and trade and immigration. Will that show up in how the tournament is run? It’s a complicated event — whatever, 104 Super Bowls in 39 days, as someone calls it.

BORDEN: Obviously, there’s this unusual and, as you said, ever-changing dynamic in terms of politics and trade that exists between these North American countries. They’re also massive rivals in soccer. The U.S.’s biggest rival is Mexico in soccer, and their rivalry with Canada over the last 10 years or so has grown exponentially. Canada is a much bigger player on the world stage now than they ever were a generation ago. They have as much of a chance to make a deep run as the U.S. or Mexico in this tournament.

So there is that competitiveness within the sporting component, but then when you add in what is happening in the world, there’s no question that it will make things a little more difficult. I think the one thing that people often don’t necessarily understand about the way the World Cup has operated is that, I think it was eight years ago, FIFA, which is the organization that runs the World Cup and global soccer, switched away from the previous model, where World Cups were operated by local organizing committees.

So, in 1994, when the World Cup was in America the last time, there was a U.S.-based company that was created, the local organizing committee, and their job was to put on the World Cup. They made all of the decisions about ticketing, stadiums, and scheduling. FIFA basically was just like, “Here’s the teams that have qualified. Here is some money that we set aside to run the World Cup. You guys put on the World Cup.”

About eight years ago, FIFA switched away from that model, and now FIFA runs the World Cup. They created a subsidiary in America. So to your question about how the relationship between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada will affect the running of the tournament, I think the short answer is that a generation ago, if this happened, it would’ve had a massive impact.

All of those questions about trade and commerce would’ve played a much bigger part than what we’re going to see in this particular iteration because FIFA is running the tournament. FIFA is making the decisions, and I’m sure we’ll talk about it when it comes to ticketing, which has been a huge controversy. All of that is being run through FIFA. That’s not run through any company that’s based in the U.S., Mexico, or Canada.

Copy LinkWhy FIFA holds so much power over ticket prices & host cities

SAFIAN: And so the price of the tickets or the naming rights — I’ve seen some of the stadiums have their names changed — all of those decisions are made by FIFA?

BORDEN: That’s correct. FIFA, despite being a nonprofit, is very good, and their president, Gianni Infantino, is very, very good at finding revenue opportunities, stretching a dollar, and squeezing as much financial reward out of any circumstance as possible. So, to your point, the ticketing platform is run by FIFA, and not only are the face-value prices, which are astronomical to begin with for these tickets, set by FIFA, but they have also created their own resale platform, where they take a 15 percent commission on every purchase and every sale.

They’re taking a commission off both sides of these resales, in addition to the commission and revenue they take from the ticket being sold the first time, and they’re monetizing all of that.

SAFIAN: Your investigative reporting on FIFA has been memorable. You were on site in Zurich in 2015 during the infamous raid and arrests of FIFA officials at a Swiss hotel. For listeners who are less familiar, can you quickly recap what you uncovered, what the situation was then, and whether FIFA has changed much since then?

BORDEN: Sure. It’s actually funny. Here, I’ll show you a little prop, because I keep this on my desk: a pen from the Baur au Lac Hotel in Zurich, Switzerland, which is where those arrests happened in 2015. And essentially, what happened was that a bunch of the highest-level executives in FIFA were arrested and caught up in a DOJ — Department of Justice — investigation around corruption, bribe-taking, vote-trading, racketeering, and all types of financial crimes that were rooted essentially in power and influence in global soccer.

The reason that the World Cup was in Qatar in 2022 and the reason, for example, that Fox is broadcasting the 2026 World Cup at a fairly bargain price is because the awarding of the 2018 and ’22 World Cups to Russia and Qatar — those votes were largely bought. Since then, I would say that FIFA’s structure has changed considerably. A number of the allegedly corrupt politicians either went to jail or faced serious ethics violations and penalties within global sport.

So there are a number of new people involved, but there’s also no question that FIFA and the way it operates are still among the murkiest global organizations you would ever want to know about. And I think we’re seeing some of the ramifications of that. They do largely operate with impunity. They own the World Cup, and if they want to set their ticket prices at whatever they want, they can. If they want to make Hard Rock Stadium in Miami be known as Miami Stadium, they can.

SAFIAN: It is a fascinating paradox that FIFA has been arguably one of the most despised organizations in global sport, and yet its signature event is the most watched on the planet. Does FIFA’s reputation matter, or does it not seem to?

BORDEN: No, it doesn’t. As much as I’m proud of the reporting that I and my colleagues at the New York Times did in 2015 — and for sure it led to some material change, certainly for the people who were involved — I’m not sure that it makes a huge difference in the overarching sentiment around soccer. It’s by far the most popular sport in the world. The Men’s World Cup is by far the most popular tournament or event in the world when it comes to sports.

And I think it’s going to take a lot for that to ever change, and certainly some rich guys getting richer, for most sports fans, is not going to resonate.

Copy LinkHow high prices threaten the fan culture

SAFIAN: The World Cup’s magic isn’t just the soccer. It’s the vuvuzelas, it’s the raucous fan energy. The high ticket prices this year — the cheapest ticket for, I think, the group stage I saw in LA was about $400-plus. The U.S. game starts at $1,200, and I know they’re selling for way more than that now.

BORDEN: It’s a total shame because one of the things that is amazing about the World Cup — every World Cup that I’ve been to, whether in Brazil, Russia, Qatar, or here — is that the fans are what make it what it is. The fans are what make it special, not just the atmosphere in the stadium, but the cultural mixing.

Walking around the souk in Doha and seeing Moroccans going crazy in one direction and Argentines coming in the other direction, and you’ve got Colombians — it’s such a wonderful moment of connection that people all over the world can have with each other over this shared event.

And to your point, I think one of the great shames of a World Cup that is spread as widely as this one is, from Canada to Mexico and all over the United States, is that you’re not going to have those moments. There’s not going to be that same kind of crisscrossing of culture.

SAFIAN: That core, that central hub, isn’t the same.

BORDEN: Yeah. If you’ve never been to a World Cup match, I’m not trying to tell anybody how to spend their money, but it is a really amazing thing. It is different from going to a Super Bowl. And when I see stories, or when I hear from fan-supporter groups who are saying — I mean, even the American Outlaws, who have been so devoted to supporting the U.S. teams — they’re not sure how many people they’re going to be able to get into the building, how many tickets they’re going to be able to get from FIFA or from U.S. Soccer, or whether they or their members can afford it. It’s just a bummer.

And that’s U.S. fans in their home country. You know it’s going to be even more difficult for a fan coming from Uzbekistan who has been waiting his entire life to see his team in the World Cup and now may or may not be able to afford to see that happen. To be honest, it’s the thing that bums me out the most about all of the stories we’ve seen in the run-up to this event because it really cuts to the heart of what makes the World Cup special.

Copy LinkWhy immigration fears and security concerns could shape the tournament

SAFIAN: There are some stories that soccer fans are fearful of traveling to the U.S. because of immigration actions and travel visa restrictions. How real is that?

BORDEN: I think it’s real. I was fortunate to live in Europe for many years, working for the Times. So I have a lot of friends who still live in Europe or around the world and who talk to me about, “OK, what is the experience like coming to America?” “Let me tell you what it was like to have my phone searched when I arrived in America, as they looked at my social media history.” “What is it like to be here when there’s an ICE raid in the city where I’m staying? How does that feel?” So I do think that it has a material impact.

SAFIAN: There was some tumult earlier this year about immigration agents potentially working at matches, which has fallen out of the headlines. Has that plan shifted, or are we just not hearing about it?

BORDEN: It sounds like there certainly will be an ICE presence around World Cup cities and venues. The government has said that there won’t be active targeting, there won’t be active enforcement. Like many journalists and many other people, I take all of that with a grain of salt. There’s a little bit of an “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

So will there be ICE activity? Will there be protests? Will there be standoffs between law enforcement and fans? My gut tells me yes. And for what it’s worth, Bob, I covered the World Cup in 2014 in Brazil, and there was incredible civil unrest among protesters in Brazil at that time. I was in São Paulo when there were anti-government protests, and police were firing rubber bullets on the day of matches.

It happens everywhere. This is not an American-only problem. I think what makes it a little bit different is that, A, America is the most visible country in the world, and the media presence here is greater than anywhere else. And then, B, America is, I think, a little more at the fulcrum of the instability the Western world feels generally speaking. So it’s different when you see another protest in Brazil versus when you see it happening in downtown Los Angeles.

Copy LinkHow FIFA tries to control political expression

SAFIAN: Does FIFA have particular rules for teams, for players, about what they can and can’t do on the field to make a statement?

BORDEN: They have very strict rules and protocols around uniforms. Even something small became a controversy in Qatar at the last World Cup. One of the issues that got a lot of attention in Qatar was the intolerance toward the LGBTQ community that existed in Qatar and in many countries in the Middle East.

A number of teams — I remember it started, I think, with the captain of the England team, Harry Kane — wanted to wear, instead of the typical armband a captain would wear, a rainbow armband in support of the LGBTQ community while the World Cup was being played in Qatar. That was a huge controversy.

FIFA said, “Look, we are very focused on having no political statements anywhere around our field of play.” And there were rules handed down that if you wore a rainbow armband in violation of that rule, you’d receive a yellow card during the game, which is a big deal. Ultimately, some kind of compromise was worked out, and there was some very generic language put on the captain’s armbands that was not rainbow-colored but said something like “Peace for all,” or whatever generic pablum you could imagine.

But to your point, they’re very strict about political statements on the field. If somebody were to lift up a jersey and there was a T-shirt underneath that said, “Free Palestine,” for example, there would be serious ramifications, for sure.

SAFIAN: In Qatar, the political culture is less open to dissent than here in the U.S., but it sounds like there are similar — maybe not identical, but similar — concerns and restrictions.

BORDEN: It’s a monthlong tournament with 48 teams. There’s a lot of press opportunity, right? Before every single match, there’s a press conference with generally the star or captain of the team and the coach from that team. And as much as FIFA might like to control the press conferences, there are going to be questions where players from international teams are offered the opportunity to speak about the United States.

In the same way that players on the U.S. team were asked about Qatar’s lack of tolerance or attitudes toward women — and I know they were, because I was in those press conferences and heard those questions asked — I would imagine there’s going to be no shortage of opportunities for foreign players to take shots at America, our president, our government, our policies, our immigration approach, whatever.

So I’ll be really curious to see how FIFA responds to that, and just how the news media in America treats what I would imagine will be a fairly steady stream of criticism about what’s going on in this country at this time.

SAFIAN: With so much global scrutiny on the U.S. politically right now, this World Cup comes at a tricky time. Is it the best time to hold a World Cup or the worst? And what does it mean to host a World Cup while at war with one of the competing nations? We’ll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, ESPN’s Sam Borden talked about World Cup ticket prices, FIFA’s murky financial role, and the stakes for Team USA. Now he talks about Iran’s participation in the World Cup and the cost-benefit trade-off of being a host country, plus his impassioned case for why the tournament means more than what happens on the pitch. Let’s dive back in.

Copy LinkWhat Iran’s participation reveals about politics

I wanted to ask you about Iran’s World Cup team coming to the U.S. in the midst of armed conflict. I know FIFA declined to restrict the team from competing. What sort of reception might they get at their matches if they come? Are there any, I don’t know, Trump wildcard concerns that people are talking about?

BORDEN: From a sporting perspective, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many of the players on the team. I would understand why they want to compete in the World Cup. And by the way, just for showing up and qualifying for the tournament, the Iran Football Federation received somewhere around $13 million U.S., which is no small thing for a country that is, as you say, actively at war.

There have been visa issues. We’ve seen a number of countries deal with them. I think the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one that also had some issues. Obviously, FIFA has worked with the U.S. government and has gotten assurances that, ultimately, the people who need to be here for the World Cup will be allowed in. But as we all know, government red tape is a reality of the world, and I think the World Cup competitors are experiencing that.

One of the things that I think is interesting is that Iran chose to move its training camp from Tucson, which was where it was originally scheduled to be, to Mexico because it wants to spend as little time as possible in America. So they’re going to train in Mexico and fly in the day before the game to Los Angeles or Seattle, where they’re playing their group-stage games, and then go right back to Mexico.

To your question about the reception, I’m actually very curious. When Iran was drawn into the group it was drawn into and its games were assigned, it ended up playing a couple of games in Los Angeles. Obviously, there’s a massive Iranian diaspora in Los Angeles. I think the expectation is that it’s going to be a pretty cold reception for the Iranian national team.

A lot of Iranian Americans who live here see the football team as a symbol of the regime, whether that’s fair or not, and are looking forward to the opportunity to boo them.

Copy LinkIs hosting the World Cup worth it for America?

SAFIAN: You mentioned previous World Cup hosts — Brazil, South Africa, Russia, Qatar. All of them staked their national prestige and resources on this event. There’s been a lot of discussion about this with Olympic hosting. Is World Cup hosting worth it? Does it pay off?

BORDEN: There are real bonuses for hosts that take an Olympics or a World Cup in terms of raising the public profile, the global profile, of the country, whether it’s tourism or just general awareness, travel opportunities, or international diplomacy. That’s not something that America generally struggles with.

I think that from a corporate standpoint, there’s no question that companies like Budweiser, Nike, and Visa, some of these companies that have been on board with U.S. Soccer and FIFA, see it as a huge monetary opportunity — brand-activation-wise and for corporate hospitality, for sure. It’s on a different level here than elsewhere.

But what I think is really interesting is that this tournament, unlike Qatar or Russia or certainly Brazil and definitely South Africa, required almost no infrastructure change. All of our NFL stadiums are already built to host these kinds of events. Several of the stadiums in Qatar were literally built and then torn down. One of them was literally made out of shipping containers that were then — I don’t think it’s happened yet, but the premise was that it was going to be taken apart and then repurposed as shipping containers.

I did a big story for The New York Times before the 2014 World Cup about how you literally build a stadium in the Amazon. There was a stadium being built in Manaus, which is the capital of the Amazonian region, and it hosted, I think, five World Cup games. They had to bring in rebar and concrete by boat and build this 40,000-seat stadium.

Once the World Cup was over, there was no professional team in the Amazon that would ever play a game and draw 40,000 spectators. So what happened at that stadium? I think it became a bus depot, and then at some point it became a prison, like a private prison. At least in America, we’re not going to have any of those massive expenditures that are unnecessary in real life.

So there’s not necessarily the same upside as these other countries in terms of visibility and making your profile bigger, but there’s also no downside in terms of, “Man, we had to spend all this money on these things that have no use once the monthlong tournament is over.”

SAFIAN: For the reputation of the United States, it’s a tricky time to have people focused on us. You mentioned all the interview questions that might come up. Is that something that could make people look back and say, “Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, to have hosted”?

BORDEN: I think that’s definitely possible, Bob, but it’s also one of those things that sometimes fate decides. This World Cup was awarded in 2018. The vote happened right before the Russia World Cup began. And at the time, I think the thinking was, “Well, geez, that’s so far from now. Ten years or eight years down the line, the country is going to be in a much better place than it might have been in 2018.”

This probably isn’t what organizers imagined would be the global profile of America right at this moment in time. But also, how could you have possibly predicted where we would be as kickoff is about to happen? Even six months ago, a year ago, would anybody have predicted we’d be in the middle of a war with Iran? I’m not sure that’s something that was on anybody’s radar at that moment.

Copy LinkWhy the World Cup still matters as a rare shared global experience

SAFIAN: Can you explain why you feel like the World Cup matters beyond the outcome of the game?

BORDEN: To me, the World Cup is, in a lot of ways, the great equalizer amid the massive disparity that exists in how people live day to day around the world. For a month, everybody wants the same thing. Everybody just wants a goal. Everybody wants a win. Everybody wants to dream for another day about how far they could go.

There are some countries competing where the living situations are horrific. Most fans in Haiti are dealing with real-life issues that far surpass anything that you or I are dealing with, but when Haiti plays, they just want the same thing every other fan wants. And there’s something simple about that that really appeals to me.

Obviously, it doesn’t paper over the real problems that exist in the world, but I like imagining a thing where, for a couple of hours or a couple of weeks or a month, everybody just wants the same thing. Maybe that’s overly simplistic or cheesy. I find some beauty in that, and I like the simplicity it offers.

SAFIAN: Do you have any tips for folks who are hoping to get tickets to the finals in New York?

BORDEN: Sell your car. I don’t know. I think getting in is going to be very difficult, and it sounds like the cost, even just to get to the game — to take a train from the city out to this stadium — is like $100 for a trip that usually costs about $12. So price gouging has even hit mass transit. But the beauty of modern sports is that watching it on TV in HD with your friends and your family, or in a bar, is a pretty great experience too.

If you’ve never watched a game, go to a sports bar. Find a friend or a group of friends who are watching it. I have a feeling your opinion of soccer will change.

SAFIAN: Sam, this was great. Thanks so much for doing it.

BORDEN: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SAFIAN: Sam’s feelings about the beauty of the World Cup resonate with me. It’s an event that reminds us that no matter what team you root for, the colors you wear, or the flag you wave, we are all people. There’s something about sport that allows us to see that, even when so many other factors highlight our differences.

Now, whether I’d sell my car to get a ticket to the final, I don’t know about that. But I will be rooting for the tournament to be a unifying force. As for the on-the-field action, I am a sports fan, unlike Sam. So for my colleagues here on the show: Go England, go Haiti, go Argentina, and of course, go Team USA. Quick reminder to join us Friday to hear from the U.S. Soccer Federation CEO.

I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.