The winners of the World Cup final between Argentina and France will earn just shy of £35million for securing football’s most coveted title.
The winners will pocket £34.6m for lifting the trophy, which is a rise of £5.6m from four-and-a-half years ago, when Les Bleus defeated Croatia 4-2 in the showpiece event in Moscow. With the runners-up set to secure £24.7m – a rise of £3.7m since 2018 – the outcome of the final is worth £9.9m to the respective sides.
FIFA has allocated a total of £362m for the 32 nations across the tournament - an increase of £33m from Russia - while in 2014, for the tournament in Brazil, the prize pot stood at less than £295m.
Argentina are in the final for the first time since that tournament eight years ago thanks to their semi-final victory over Croatia and are aiming to go one step further than that attempt to secure their first World Cup title since 1986.
Their opponents, France, are vying to become the first nation to successfully defend the World Cup title since Brazil won back-to-back trophies in 1962. Les Bleus have seen off Poland, England and Morocco on their route to the final, despite having a host of key players unavailable for the tournament, including Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante and Paul Pogba.
While the prize money may seem significant, FIFA has a revenue budget of £3.8billion in 2022, with broadcasting rights set to contribute £2.14bn in income. Prior to Italy’s title in 2006, nations that won the World Cup never pocketed more than £8million while the Azzurri’s title in 1982 saw them secure an estimated jackpot of £1.8m for their efforts.
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Saturday’s third-place play-off between Croatia and Morocco was worth £1.6m to the nations, as the winners of that encounter take home a total of £22.2m from the tournament in comparison to £20.6m for the fourth-placed side.
England, as with the three other defeated quarter-finalists - Portugal, Netherlands and Brazil - secured £14m for their tournament travails, while the eight nations who exited at the round of 16 took home £10.7m each.
The 16 nations who failed to progress through the group stages of the tournament, including Wales, have been allocated £7.4m each in prize money. Additionally, all 32 competing nations were given £1.24m ahead of the competition to cover preparation costs.
FIFA allows each competing nation to decide what share of the prize money their players receive, meaning that the sum players take home is dependant upon the discretion of their respective football association.
