Commentary | FIFA has gone to great lengths to appeal to American soccer fans, but they got us all wrong

PHILADELPHIA A little less than two months ago, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote a piece entitled A World Cup in Trump’s America is insane. How this fan is coping.”

In it, Bunch opined about what he labeled as corrupt capitalism (regarding ticket gouging) and unrestrained xenophobia (Trump travel bans), the likes of which haven’t been seen.

He delivered it through the lens of Philadelphian - by way of Ivory Coast - Bouakary Coulibaly, a devout fan of a Les Éléphants squad that will play two matches in Philly in a few weeks.

Despite his love for soccer and his country, Coulibaly couldn’t consider paying $836 for nosebleed seats to one of its matches, offering yet another example of the greed FIFA has displayed in bringing its biggest spectacle to North America.

At the time of Bunch’s piece, price gouging was one of the few eye-openers that stood to ruin the excitement of the World Cup.

With FIFA for the first time enacting a page from the playbook of American sports by introducing dynamic pricing to its ticket sales, it’s fair to say they believed that historically high demand would rake in millions from the wallets of not only the 1%, but that of hardworking, soccer-loving Americans, in a country rife with immigrants and expatriates.

Here we are now, two weeks out from what’s supposed to be the start of the biggest World Cup ever, when 48 nations, not the customary 32, battle to be inside New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the site of the World Cup final, on July 19.

But instead of excitement, this lead-up feels almost trite, given that FIFA simply has found a new way to veil its purpose of making as much cash as humanly possible, alienating its mission of making the game “For the World,” as its corporate slogan suggests.

The goal might be the same for these nations, many of which are arriving with the world’s best players in tow, but the backdrop just feels different.

Welcome, soccer fans, to the American bastardization of “The Beautiful Game.”

Ticketing is its own problem, one so severe that two attorneys general are investigating FIFA for unfair practices. But look at the game. For the first time, there will be opportunities for sponsors to run ads masked behind a pause in the action for “hydration breaks” that are scheduled to last up to three minutes.

Which, if you’re in the advertising or broadcasting world, you know is just enough time to peddle fast food, alcohol, hardware supplies, financial services and more to millions watching on television.

Those sectors happen to be some of FIFA’s largest sponsors.

Soccer, or football for the purists, was the last bastion of sport in which one could watch a match uninterrupted and not have to reset their brain back to the action after turning down the TV because the ads were pumped in louder than the game itself.

Now, that’s gone. FIFA took a page from the American sports landscape for a game that attracts mostly non-Americans.

Even more preposterous? Remember that final on July 19? For the first time in the 96-year history of the World Cup, it will have a Super Bowl-style halftime show, featuring Madonna, Shakira and South Korean boy band BTS as the headliners.

Now, for those who read this and say, So what? It’s just like any other sport, who cares? I’ll tell you who cares.

Europeans care. Africans care. Asians care.

All people who aren’t predominantly locked in to the NBA Finals, the World Series or the Super Bowl.

Don’t believe me? Check out the Nielsen ratings for any of the previous World Cup finals and then compare them to any Super Bowl in the last 12 years (the last three World Cup cycles), and you’ll see what I mean.

The 2022 version of the World Cup was the most-watched men’s World Cup in history, with nearly 5 billion viewers across all platforms, according to a recent report in Reader’s Digest.

Instead, anyone watching will be subjected to watching Madonna, Shakira and BTS deliver a halftime show, one that keeps players competing for the world’s largest sporting prize sequestered in locker rooms longer than usual for our supposed viewing pleasure.

It’s so preposterous that the BBC, a $200 million rights holder for the tournament, already announced plans not to air FIFA’s halftime spectacle during its broadcast.

The World Cup is for the Americas. But it’s also for the other continents with people who grew up watching soccer the way it’s supposed to look. Many of the nations within those continents, 75 to be exact, are banned or under severe guidelines to enter the United States to see the game live because of travel restrictions levied by the Trump Administration.

You’d think with that knowledge, FIFA would show some goodwill and keep its matches looking the way they’re supposed to.

And for the soccer fans and American sports traditionalists who don’t care about what supporters from other countries think about it because you don’t live there or it doesn’t affect you, or worse, because this is what you’ve always been used to, well, perhaps you just proved why FIFA has been allowed to get away with so much.

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This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 7:42 AM.