The World Cup: The Game, Power, and Memory

The 2026 FIFA World Cup ended on a high note for FIFA, the United States, and football fans alike. Tournament revenues are expected to reach $13 billion, making this edition the most profitable sporting event in history. The result further strengthens Gianni Infantino’s position ahead of his bid for re-election as FIFA president next year.

This World Cup also ranked among the most expensive sporting events ever staged in the United States. On the secondary market, ticket prices soared, with an average purchase price of $10,800 and individual tickets fetching as much as $32,000. Whether that is good or bad news depends entirely on whether one is buying… or selling.

Although weather conditions disrupted a handful of matches, they fell far short of the widespread postponements many observers had feared. Likewise, the logistical nightmares predicted for the first World Cup jointly hosted by three countries, the United States, Mexico, and Canada, ultimately failed to materialize.

With 48 teams and 104 matches, the tournament produced the kind of surprises that give the World Cup its unique magic and unpredictability. Cape Verde, the second smallest nation ever to qualify for the competition, emerged as one of the tournament’s revelations by holding Spain to a draw in its opening match. Norway, returning to the World Cup after a very long absence, reached the quarter-finals thanks to its towering striker Erling Haaland, who quickly became a fan favorite, while Norwegian supporters popularized their now-famous “Viking clap.”

Canada and Egypt also wrote new chapters in their respective World Cup histories. Egypt advanced to the Round of 16, becoming one of nine African nations to reach the knockout stage. Among FIFA’s six continental confederations, Africa even outperformed Europe, sending thirteen teams beyond the group stage.

Lionel Messi finally put to rest any remaining debate about his place among the greatest players in World Cup history, if not in the history of football itself. By leading his team to the final, he left the pitch at MetLife Stadium as only the second player ever to appear in three World Cup finals.

Yet these achievements should not obscure the tournament’s darker realities. This edition will be remembered as the most politicized World Cup in history, and the first to be staged while the host nation, the United States, was at war with Iran. The consequences were immediate, beginning with the refusal to grant visas to more than a dozen members of the official Iranian delegation. The U.S. State Department also denied entry to Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, citing “security concerns requiring further review.”

Meanwhile, although the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system was originally introduced to alert the referee to clear and obvious errors or serious incidents that had gone unnoticed, it became increasingly interventionist throughout the tournament. It ruled out a Croatian goal and denied Egypt what could have been the winning strike. Critics argue that VAR has steadily stripped refereeing of its human judgment, depriving football of much of its dramatic tension. Football is an art, not merely a system. It is precisely that element of uncertainty that makes millions fall in love with the game.

Adding to the controversy was the extraordinary intervention of President Donald Trump, who claimed credit for refereeing decisions involving striker Folarin Balogun, even asserting that he had personally intervened to secure the suspension of a red card.

But, as always with FIFA, money speaks the loudest. Despite the controversies surrounding Gianni Infantino over the past year, he appears to have lost little support. Spain, therefore, was not the tournament’s only winner. This World Cup also became an extension of international relations and one of the clearest expressions of soft power in today’s world.

The World Cup may well be the last truly universal language still spoken by humanity. It creates memories as much as it forges a sense of belonging. Within this universe, FIFA, Donald Trump, Gianni Infantino, money, sponsors, and VAR do not stand as separate phenomena. Together, they illustrate a single reality: politics no longer watches the match from the stands. It now plays on the pitch.

Yet despite every attempt to politicize the game, people still weep over a goal, celebrate an unexpected upset, and believe that a smaller nation can still bring down one of football’s traditional giants. That is a form of symbolic justice that politics can never fully buy. Since the inaugural World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, followed by Italy in 1934, England in 1966, and the tournament of 2002, football’s greatest competition has never been free from controversy and scandal.

Football can serve as a peaceful substitute for war. It can also help supporters around the world recognize what unites them rather than what divides them, beyond political conflict, allegations of corruption, or the practice of sportswashing. But that is not the whole story.

The World Cup may be a luxury. Yet it is one that virtually no one is willing to give up. Every four years, millions of fans quietly slip away from work to watch the matches, allow their children to stay up late into the night, and put everyday life on hold, if only for ninety minutes. No one can take that pleasure away from them.

The World Cup is a remarkable machine for creating memories. Longtime supporters remember exactly where they were during their team’s greatest triumphs and most painful defeats, and who shared those moments with them: a father who is no longer alive, a friend, a child who has since grown up. Football also keeps alive the hope that a different future remains possible, one in which the underdogs can overturn the established order and reach the summit, if only for the duration of a tournament. It is a drama that never truly fades, echoed even in national anthems, themselves infused with memories of war, soldiers, and sacrifice.

The proliferation of conspiracy theories is, in itself, a measure of the extraordinary passion the World Cup inspires across the globe. According to FIFA, nearly three billion people watched the 2026 final on television. Such an audience generates enormous revenue streams from broadcasting rights, sponsorship agreements, ticket sales, and hospitality packages.

Like his long-serving predecessors, Sepp Blatter and João Havelange, Gianni Infantino has demonstrated a remarkable ability to move comfortably among the world’s most powerful figures. He received Russia’s Order of Friendship from Vladimir Putin and created the FIFA Peace Award, which he presented to Donald Trump. By expanding the tournament to 48 teams, FIFA also expanded the web of competing interests, rivalries, and geopolitical calculations at a time of growing international instability.

The familiar call to “keep politics out of sport” is ultimately a convenient illusion. No one should expect sport to exist in a sanctuary untouched by political influence. What can and should be demanded, however, is greater consistency, transparency, and accountability. Technology can help achieve those goals, but it can also complicate them when decisions disappear behind the digital curtain of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).

There is no disputing matters of taste, even if a small minority, out of aesthetic sensibility, sees football shirts as symbols of an inherently violent game. The reality is that football captivates almost everyone because it awakens something deeply archaic: the need for collective ritual.

As the sociologist Émile Durkheim observed, sacred things are “set apart and surrounded by prohibitions.” For many, football has become a genuine day of worship, a ritual that nourishes communal pride and peacefully unites people around shared identities. It satisfies the desire to belong to something greater than oneself through what Durkheim called “collective effervescence,” creating bonds between people who might otherwise have very little in common, brought together by the celebration of an unexpected victory.

This dynamic also opens the door to unexpected possibilities. Loyalty to the nation, expressed through a player’s national identity, can prove far more complex than it first appears. American footballer Folarin Balogun, born in the United States to Nigerian parents and also eligible to represent England, is a case in point. Supporting a national team therefore also means embracing pluralism and the ability of societies to forge new forms of shared identity, in which the “I” becomes a “we.” It is precisely this dynamic that brought together the people of New York around a shared emotion.

The Catholic theologian Michael Novak argued that “sport flows from a deep natural impulse toward excellence.” Politics, too, appeals to tribal instincts. Football, however, offers those instincts an arena infinitely less cruel than the battlefield, and even less divisive than the ballot box. Perhaps that is football’s quietest act of mercy.