The Fifa leadership travel to Doha on Monday, for a series of meetings around “The Best” awards, where certain sources are anticipating at least some tension. And not over who wins.
A number of national associations remain aggravated by the astronomical World Cup 2026 ticket prices, and want to directly raise it. The Football Association says it will relay fan concerns to Fifa, but the Football Supporters’ Association expects more. They expect the FA to push on this, and display proper support.
If it doesn’t, there will be uproar and potential escalation of the latest controversy surrounding Fifa and the World Cup.
The story should already be bringing much more scrutiny on the conduct of the FA – and other major federations – in football’s power structure.
Sources within such federations generally insist that they must maintain a diplomatic stance when dealing with the top brass of Fifa and Uefa, due to the risk of political ostracisation, given that both federations are top-down executive president models with little scope for dissent.
So, they generally say very little that is challenging, as they attempt to keep some influence.
Except, what is the point of any of that if you say nothing and have absolutely no influence when it matters most?
The FA’s first obligation, after all, is to the football public of England. To its constituents.
You may as well be politically ostracised if you can’t serve them in something like this.
And what is going to happen anyway? It’s not like Fifa or Uefa are going to cut off Forward or HatTrick funding.
Both federations absolutely love Wembley, knowing how much more lucrative it is than any other European stadium. That means little to no risk of losing major fixtures.
FA lobbyists may point to the bid for the Fifa Women’s World Cup 2035, but there’s no competition there.
And, in any case, do they really have a mandate to secure a tournament at any cost – like that to their fans?
The refusal to publicly speak on this would be utterly spineless.
Such an approach is all the more surprising right now, given that there is constant tension between football’s various stakeholders – from the Premier League to European Football Clubs (the new name for the European Club Association) – and you need sharp elbows to secure your space in the calendar. You need a sense of fight.
Many of those same stakeholders often declare themselves shocked at the meekness of the major federations, from the FA to the associations of France, Germany and Spain. There’s a feeling that they absolutely waste their potential power, and that they should be moral guardians of the game.
Instead, various sources describe them as “the most complicit in the preservation of football’s system” due to the refusal to flex their greater muscle and, worse, “patsies”.
Fifa and Uefa have allowed the game to be taken over by greater power, with virtually no challenge. And this has far greater future risks.
The great frustration with this ticket crisis – even though you could have said this about any of Fifa’s controversies over the last few weeks – is that a potential outlet for dissent is so obvious and powerful.
If the 10-15 wealthiest federations coordinated action, or even put out a joint statement, it would “rattle” Fifa president Gianni Infantino on this, according to insiders. It would be dissent he is not used to.
So simple, so potentially effective in this controversy.
If Fifa still doesn’t budge on prices, and a position in this patronage system is apparently so valuable to the federations, there is another option.
The national associations can use the ample money they receive from Fifa and Uefa to subsidise the tickets of regular match-going fans.
Many of the latter are already talking of having to make very hard decisions on whether to attend next summer’s tournament. It could be reasonably argued that full support is all the more valuable, given that this looks like England’s best chance of winning a World Cup in decades.
But, really, there is something deeper here.
There is a moral and political argument.
The member associations, most of all the FA, should do much more for their constituents. As was reported on these pages on Saturday, FA chair Debbie Hewitt is ideally placed as the first female vice-president in Fifa’s history.
“I’m not known for being a silent observer,” she said on taking that role in 2023.
There’s never been a more important moment to prove that.
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