FootBiz newsletter #160: Unsightly FIFA spats threaten the women's game in ways they don't realise

We’ve heard a lot about the cost of the World Cup to fans and cities, as arguments continue to rage between local politicians keen to shift blame onto an easy target, but there hasn’t been much said about the cost this could have for the Women’s World Cup.

The USA, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica are bidding unopposed to host the 2031 tournament in a joint-CONCACAF offering that originally was supposed to be confirmed by now.

Instead all their work is being undone by bickering politicians and the greed of those running the tournament.

To update you with the most recent context: Senators and congressmen have rounded on world football’s governing body over the extortionate prices being charged not just for tickets for this summer’s men’s World Cup, but also now for transport, with Massachusetts and New York/New Jersey matches requiring fans to pay staggering (up to 10x) markups from regular prices in order to attend games where they have already been gouged on tickets. 

New York senator Chuck Schumer called the train prices “a rip-off” while New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill pointed the finger at FIFA not just for the one-sided agreement her administration inherited, but for banning parking and tailgating, resulting in no other options for fans except sky-high prices on public transport. (There is a local fear that fans will try to walk the highway to games)

FIFA have got a bit sassy with it. Their Twitter/X account has been biting back at reports that they banned tailgating, for example, and they also accused New Jersey’s extortionate train pricing of having a “chilling effect… that creates broader ripple effects that ultimately diminish the economic benefit and lasting legacy the entire region stands to gain from hosting the World Cup.”

Of course, FIFA don’t think that charging sky-high prices for tickets, then drip-feeding new tickets out while profiting on both the buy and sell sides via their re-sale platform has a “chilling effect” but you just need to assess the general mood to know how their actions are affecting public perception of the tournament.

FootBiz used a large language model that processes native text to analyse how the tone of coverage had evolved over the past 12 months and the results are not particularly surprising.

While the concerns towards the end of 2025 were more political, since the turn of the year it has become far more operational, logistical and financial.

In short, international visitors are staying away and US-based fans are turning against the World Cup because of questions over governance (political and sporting), security and cost.

Which brings us back to the Women’s World Cup, for which the CONCACAF bid was supposed to be confirmed unopposed (just how FIFA likes them these days, it seems) this month.

That won’t be happening.

The White House has failed to provide necessary guarantees for the biggest tournament in women’s football, while host cities eager to avoid a repeat of the unsightly disputes we are seeing play out in public are holding out for better deals.

So FIFA just pushed it all back to later this year (no date set) and will deal with it then.

According to a report in The Athletic, the White House are partly refusing to play ball as they see this as leverage in one of their key culture war policies, the banning of transgender athletes, and Donald Trump is trying to pressure FIFA to fall in line.

All of which only serves to damage the thing that everyone has been working towards, the biggest women’s football tournament in history, hosted across five different countries and thus needing as much lead time as possible for preparations.

To be robbed of those by ideologues who don’t care about the sport or local politicians still bristling at their treatment by world football’s governing body is one thing.

But the overall bad feeling surrounding the men’s World Cup this summer, a self-inflicted wound by FIFA, also threatens to seriously undermine the women’s tournament when their time comes around in a few years.

To try and find the positive spin on it, Americans love a winner and at least the USWNT is very good, something we can’t really say for the men. Perhaps tickets will be cheaper, to see a better team, and fans will turn up in droves?

Similarly, a Caribbean nation hosting a World Cup fixture for the first time will be historic for the sport.

But if the US public is left with the feeling that the World Cup at its core is a parade of charlatans in suits designing ways to simply extract the maximum amount of cash from the American consumer, then it will damage a huge opportunity across the region for the women’s game.

It’s not the only reason to cut out all this endless extorting of fans, but it’s another really good one.

Table of Contents

• Forest’s UEFA multi-club wrangle

• Who replaces Arbeloa in Madrid?

• Black Knight branch out

• Wednesday buyers pick CEO as deal nears

• World Cup final gets halftime show

Programming note: there won’t be a newsletter later this week as I have league meetings in Mexico, normal service resumes next Tuesday

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