Certain fears around this World Cup have been largely avoided. There were no notable security issues to the public. The stadiums were largely full after a slower start. The football has not been low intensity and the weather didn’t interrupt much.
But don’t think that this made the World Cup free of controversy. From Iran to Folarin Balogun and suspended referees to gaudy glitz, here are nine things that have ground my gears over the last six weeks…
Omar Artan’s absence
Artan is an elite referee who was selected by Fifa for this tournament. He held a valid US visa and a diplomatic passport organised through the Somalian embassy in Nairobi. And he was blocked from entering the US when he arrived for the officials’ pre-tournament camp in Miami.
US border and customs subsequently accused Artan of having links to a terrorist organisation, something that he strenuously denied. Uefa then appointed him as the referee in the Super Cup final, which you have to say is magnificent PR.
First, Trump told the Iran team that he could not guarantee their safety and therefore they should not come. Then Iran were forced to move their training camp from the USA to Mexico and fly in and out for each match. Then members of the coaching staff were delayed from being allowed across the border.
In addition, members of the Uzbekistan squad and staff faced severe and targeted treatment by border officials when they arrived in New York City.
On the Road USA
Join Daniel Storey on his 7,200-mile odyssey across the US to tell the stories of a World Cup like no other.
Major football tournaments have opening and closing ceremonies that are always rubbish but can be ignored because they do not interrupt the flow of the football. Until this World Cup, when Fifa announced mid-tournament that not only would there be an additional half-time show (like the Super Bowl) during the final but that it would cause half-time to be doubled in length.
So we are changing the fabric of the match, going against Ifab laws and causing the players to shift their own preparations in the biggest match in world football because Fifa want to make some more money? Yeah fair enough, that sounds exactly like something we should have predicted.
Super Bowl-style rings
The glitzy sporting Americana doesn’t stop there. In the build-up to the final, it was announced that the winners of the World Cup would receive 30 Super Bowl-style rings as a prize. As well as, y’know, the actual World Cup trophy and medals that were enough until 2026.
The good news for anyone who has saved up their pocket money is that there will also be 1,996 of these rings for sale to people who want them, just to make sure that even the novelty value of a player having a ring is entirely eroded. The bad news? They will cost a reported $150,000 (£111,000) each.
Ticket pricing
After some early setbacks for Fifa, whatever their social media accounts claimed at the time, matches were generally played out to full stadiums. Fifa will inevitably reason that supply and demand trumps any other principle when they are spreading every single penny back to world football. Or whatever.
But the ticket pricing for this tournament remains a disgrace and that will never change. You can choose to look after supporters, to make it possible for those outside the wealthy to attend games, whether that be locals in the host countries or those travelling from abroad.
The Balogun ban
Probably the controversy that will live longest in the memory, purely because of how it subverted our expected norms around major tournaments.
We thought that a red card meant a ban with no appeal – wrong. We thought that political interference was banned – wrong. We thought that Fifa would not take calls from leaders over football matters – wrong. We thought that more than one person on the committee would decide this stuff – wrong.
The USA lost 4-1 to Belgium with Folarin Balogun in the team. I hope it was worth it to sell your soul up the river.
Hydration breaks
Having a break in Miami or any other outdoor stadium where the conditions demanded it caused no anger at all. But the extension of that procedure to games with no extreme heat and even those in climate-controlled stadiums? Nonsense.
The breaks allow managers to speak to their players (Photo: Getty)
And we all know why it happened. In the US and other countries around the world, broadcasters inserted an advert break that effectively turned a two-half football match into four quarters. Which was a low moment for the Americanisation of football.
Tournament expansion
Another moment in which we all had to prepare to feign surprise. After a difficult fortnight for Gianni Infantino during which we heard that he had lost internal support over the Balogun affair, Fifa’s president needed a PR shot in the arm. Cue his admission that Fifa would look at extending to 64 teams for 2030.
It’s not that a 64-team tournament would be worse than 48; it wouldn’t. It’s that the first expansion was clearly a placeholder, that expansion would magically create a need for more hosts and thus make more money and that Africa and South America, where Infantino has his core support, would most benefit.
Trump making his play for more
Speaking on Friday afternoon before Sunday’s final, Trump spoke in a press conference in which he “joked” that Fifa should give the USA the World Cup back very soon, but this time without bothering to include Canada and Mexico. As ever with these jokes, Trump absolutely means it.
With 2030 and 2034 already confirmed (and I don’t think even Trump can talk Infantino out of that), put your money on USA hosting in 2038. Either with New Zealand if Fifa pay heed to Oceania’s turn in the queue, or without if they ride roughshod over that principle. It’s so transparent that it hurts.
By Sunday evening, Cristian Romero could be a two-time world champion. Argentina, for whom he has been a key figure for over half a decade now, are out to become only the third team in history to retain the World Cup successfully.
But there isn’t a single player in La Albiceleste’s international ranks with such a paradoxical reputation at club level. Romero has never let Argentina down, best demonstrated by the four trophies he’s won with them in the last five years.
What is perceived as a reckless style in the Premier League is encouraged when he dons the famous blue-and-white stripes of his home country. His dastardly shithousing reached new heights in Wednesday’s semi-final win over England, goading familiar faces and being part of the squad that held up an offensive banner referencing the Falkland Islands (or ‘Malvinas’, in verbatim).
The great Lionel Messi often heralds Romero as the best defender in the world, though that’s almost certainly because he’s blissfully ignorant to what goes on at Tottenham Hotspur.
Romero has reached the World Cup final with Argentina (Photo: Getty)
Last summer, Romero was appointed Spurs club captain, succeeding the legendary Son Heung-min. It was a choice that made sense in the moment, with the centre-back stepping up to claim Player of the Match for his performance in the Europa League final against Manchester United while he was also part of Ange Postecoglou’s leadership group before the Australian was sacked.
It is not a decision that has aged particularly well. The appointment of Thomas Frank as head coach, coupled with the arrival of Vinai Venkatesham as CEO, was meant to signal a cultural reset. Romero taking on the captain’s armband went directly against that ethos.
Club sources claim that Spurs’ most recent superstars – Son, Harry Kane and Hugo Lloris – set the standards at Hotspur Way. They were self-aware, very receptive to the idea they were leaders as much as players and carried themselves accordingly. Everyone fell in line, and maybe more importantly, nobody wanted to let them down.
Romero, to this point, has shown no such qualities as captain. His punctuality has been a persistent issue, no more so than when it emerged he was late to training one day after Spurs were battered 4-1 by north London rivals Arsenal last November.
Instead of leading in the dressing room and on the pitch, most of Romero’s talking has come on social media, uploading a number of Instagram posts calling out the club’s board for their injury crises and lack of transfer market movement over the last couple of years.
Plenty of disgruntled Tottenham supporters backed Romero when he last took aim at the club hierarchy in January, but the sentiment has radically swung in the opposite direction since.
It was often speculated Romero cared more about playing for Argentina than Spurs. He has always dismissed this notion out of hand, but actions speak louder than words. When he fled England to train with boyhood side Belgrano on the week Tottenham’s Premier League relegation could have been confirmed, choosing to focus on rebuilding fitness for the World Cup after injury, he was effectively cyber-bullied by fans into returning to London.
It is now a fairly open secret that Tottenham simply want out of the Romero business. They would rather take the chance he pieces everything together elsewhere than be the fall guys for his shenanigans for another year. Should he indeed leave this summer, he will go down as one of Spurs’ worst-ever captains.
And despite everything, Romero stands on the brink of greatness. He is a god among Argentinians, yet viewed in the country where he plays his club football as a villain so cartoonish it now borders on parody. There have rarely been more Jekyll & Hyde players than Romero in history. That, in itself, is a fitting legacy.
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France 4-6 England (Mbappe 48′, 66′, Barcola 54′, Dembele 90+6 | Rice 3′, Konsa 18′, Saka 37′, 45+1, 87′ pen, Bellingham 90+8)
A game of two halves rarely had greater application. A liberated England so far ahead Dan Burn and the defensive firefighters were packed off to Miami Beach for some welcome R&R. By the second half drinks break there was a fleet of Ubers bringing them back. By then a four-goal lead had shrunk to one and we were back to Atlanta processing collapse..
So much for a match of no consequence. In the first half England made a nonesense of DNA theory. You could argue that France had perhaps checked out in a mad first half, but they still had Kylian Mbappe, Michael Olise, Desire Doue and Rayan Cherki on the pitch.
Thomas Tuchel said that everyday is a learning day in this game, especially in defeat. Maybe the secret is not to overcomplicate nor overthink. Rather convince yourself the game means nothing and play stress-free football.
Just 134 seconds in, the net was collecting its first cargo, a curled effort from Declan Rice. What on earth was he doing so far up the pitch? Executing or ignoring the instructions of Tuchel.
Rice was aided by a poor pass from Doue but the point is he was advanced enough to leather it. England and the match needed that. And so did Tuchel, booed by the England fans when his name was broadcast on the PA.
Tuchel ripped up the template here with seven changes from the Argentine retreat, none of which included Kobbie Mainoo, who was declared injured. That tension will have to work itself out later when minuteless Mainoo eventually addresses his treatment by Tuchel at this tournament.
Tuchel wanted us to believe this squad just wasn’t up to it (Photo: Reuters)
England appeared notably relaxed and with Rice operating without Elliot Anderson in a deep double-pivot were more offensively organised. Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze combined higher up the pitch to feed the wide men Bukayo Saka and Marcus Rashford. Ivan Toney dropped into the spaces to link the play Harry Kayne-esque.
For those who would have the English footballer inferior, it must have been perplexing to watch the white shirts outmanoeuvre the feted French to take a two-goal lead by the first drinks break and double it before half-time.
Maybe what this showed is that talk of DNA bears little scrutiny. Football is species specific played by sapiens. How players express potential within the limitations of legs and feet is governed by the same factors; speed, balance, strength, build and temperament. None can fly nor run at 100 mph. The exceptional make a difference, the rest do their jobs according to tactical and strategic choices.
England were miles better than the opposition in the opening 45 minutes, playing according to Premier League first principles; dynamic, attacking, aggressive, competent, confident.
France came back with a raft of substitutions which utterly tipped the balance. Mbappe began to find space and Olise had Ousame Dembele and Bradley Barcola to feed on the wings.
England were run ragged by the reconstituted French and might easily have seen their advantage disappear. The late introduction of Jude Bellingham and Anderson proved sufficient to restore order and a late penalty from Saka three minutes from time for his hat-trick looked to have given England space to breathe.
Then Djed Spence succumbed to injury reducing England to 10 men. Dembele took advantage with a fourth for France in added time.
Enter Bellingham to end the tournament with a quite brilliant solo effort. It felt fitting that Bellingham should have the last word for England, demonstrating what might be should Tuchel grasp the nettle and finally set England free.
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NEW YORK — Back by popular demand, headlining in New York/New Jersey, the man who stole the world. Gianni Infantino’s big weekend began with a speech at the United Nations HQ on Friday followed by a reception in his honour hosted by President Donald Trump in an eponymous golden tower just a mile away.
The World Cup has delivered Infantino the dream vista, the defending World Champions Argentina against the European champions Spain in New York, the biggest game in world football in the world’s most dynamic metropolis. Lionel Messi versus Lamine Yamal.
It could have been bettered only by the involvement of Cristiano Ronaldo but that would have left Infantino open to accusations of manipulation, which is against football’s code of honour as well as Fifa statutes. And let’s face it, none could accuse him of that.
Well, okay, that’s a stretch. Infantino makes Niccolo Machiavelli’s scheming creation, the Prince, blush, no genuflection too great, no bow too low, no cap too big to doff.
Though Fifa is the most powerful body in sport, Infantino has surpassed the great Sepp Blatter in his alignment of sports richest economy with global politics. There is no world leader whose boots Infantino will not lick, no CEO to whom he will not ingratiate himself if it gets him through the door.
He hit the jackpot with the United States where Trump is both king and CEO, giving Infantino carte Blanche to exploit football’s fanatical base and sell it back to them as privilege.
This requires some sacrifice, of course, namely the willingness to burn through the ethical and regulatory rule book to satisfy one’s own ends. Thus did Infantino sanction the most expensive pricing structure in ticketing history, force upon the host cities sky high travel and accommodation costs just to break even, sanction travel bans on fans, participants and referees, impose add breaks in each half and pass them off as health benefits even in temperature controlled stadia where rehydration was never an issue.
Infantino hit the jackpot with this World Cup (Photo: Getty)
The most egregious adulteration resulted in the reinstatement of USA striker Folarin Balogun versus Belgium following a straight red for dangerous play against Bosnia-Herzegovina. One call from Trump to Infantino was all it took for Fifa’s opaque disciplinary committee to torch regulatory protocols and deliver an altered state without explanation.
There is no right of appeal. The United States accepted the outcome despite disputing the validity of the card. Infantino slithered beneath a rock called independence to legitimise the secretive actions taken by Fifa lawmakers, claiming with a remarkably straight face it would not be right for him to influence outcomes.
None of the above put a crease in his well-cut navy suit and crisp white shirt when he addressed the United Nations in a celebratory speech that framed the tournament in an alternative reality known only to the FIFA comms office and the White House press department.
Omar Artan, the Somali referee, banned from taking part over supposed vetting issues, would have been reaching for his English dictionary to reconcile his understanding of the word “community” with Infantino’s. The fiction of bringing people together, a central motif of Infantino’s Disneyesque rhetoric, would have fallen hard on the ears of all those denied entry, be they fans, officials or players.
Infantino moved on to Trump Tower to fawn over the most powerful man in the world as a medieval courtier might, his unctuous servility leaving an oily residue on the carpet. “The American dream Mr President came to reality. We united the world,” Infantino gushed.
Trump wouldn’t know a penalty box from a jewellery box. He has yet to attend a match, though he will be centre-stage at the presentation ceremony. The World Cup is PR fantasia for him, a useful tool convened by a useful idiot which has the useful benefit of deflecting from a pointless war with Iran and his absurd obsession with voting conspiracies, both of which are a massive drag on voter confidence in mid-terms year.
Funnily enough the Balogun incident didn’t get a mention in Trump’s eulogy to Infantino. The tournament’s dark underbelly flows unseen like a sewer, unremarked by the powers that be but detected nonetheless by the rank and file, who cannot be but touched by the smell.
Such has been the degree of mistrust of refereeing throughout the tournament particularly in relation to Argentina’s progress, one commentator identified referee Ismail Elfath as a greater threat to England’s progress than Messi in the semi-final.
He was right. The numbers bore out the sentiment, Argentina registering the most infractions of any team in the opening ten minutes of the semi-final and 12 in all during the first half, for the collection of just one yellow card.
Incredibly Giuliano Simeone, whose wild MMA simulations accounted for five free-kicks, went unpunished whilst Elliott Anderson, almost decapitated by Enzo Fernandez inside three minutes, was booked for impeding Messi. At least he was somewhere near the ball.
Egypt were scathing of their treatment in the round of 16 alleging outright favouritism towards Messi, all of which Fifa’s head of referees Pierluigi Collina dismissed as losers’ lament.
As a result an overwhelming sense of misappropriation of football’s ancient conventions has clung to Infantino. The unwanted World Cup final half-time ceremony that threatens to double the interlude from 15 minutes to half an hour, is one final insult to suffer.
Since there is no means to unseat him given the dependence of the majority of global federations on Fifa cash handouts, the court of Infantino grows ever stronger, promising a 64-team event at soon as the next World Cup in 2030. At least Trump will have left the scene by then.
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As soon as you enter Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, you feel like you are in a Jackson Pollock fever dream. The home of the Dallas Cowboys appears to have landed in Arlington from outer space. The inspiration behind it? Not the Maracanã nor Wembley, but the Pyramids of Giza.
Houston boasts a behemoth of a sporting structure to be proud of. Seattle’s World Cup venue oozes charm. Inside Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, your jaw rarely leaves the floor. It’s the sensation designers of Manchester United’s new ground are desperate to replicate.
The New York-New Jersey Stadium – just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it – needs a rebranding, from MetLife to MehLife. Given its competition in the US, it is not fit to host the greatest sporting spectacle of all on 19 July.
The location
First of all, it is not even in New York. Not even the same state. You can see the city skyline from the stadium, but that is where the affiliation ends.
There just isn’t anything else near the MetLife. East Rutherford is not somewhere you automatically think of as a sporting utopia.
Americans have the ultimate penchant for the gargantuan, which is why so many of its arenas are out of town. Few others are quite so marooned as the MetLife.
Money, money, money
There are cheaper ways to get there than the New Jersey Transit from Penn Station, but the fastest route – for the journey that is equidistant to the Kings Cross to Wembley Jubilee Line trip – hits supporters’ pockets hard, in a World Cup that has already broken the bank.
The MetLife Stadium is in the completely wrong place (Photo: Getty)
It was revealed before the tournament started that the local transport body was planning to charge a whopping $150 (£114) return for the journey. Organisers later climbed down and said they would reduce prices after such a severe backlash. But how close would they get to the regular $12.90 (£9.80) for the trip?
The final figure, which someone thought was acceptable, is $98 (£74). Imagine if Transport for London put tube fares up to £74 for a single journey for the FA Cup final? Outrageous.
Charmless facilities
In Dallas or Atlanta, when temperatures get too much, the roof is closed and air conditioning gets pumped in to ensure the best possible contest. In East Rutherford, there isn’t even anywhere to shelter from the rain. In the press box as England toiled against Panama, the only solution offered was a plastic sheet to go over your head.
Thomas Tuchel criticised the pitch at the MetLife Stadium earlier in the tournament (Photo: Getty)
If it had the magic of an old Olympic stadium, like the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, which was built in 1922, then the MetLife architects could be forgiven. But the MetLife is only 16 years old. Why doesn’t it have any of the modern facets every other arena comes with? Especially in the US.
Should the weather for the final be wet, it will certainly dampen moods. Everyone had no choice but to sit through an at-times tepid England victory in rather uncomfortable ponchos. The atmosphere suffered as a result.
A pitch fit for the World Series, not World Cup
“It is a very fast pitch, very short and almost feels a bit like astroturf and a bit uneven, different layers to the grass,” Thomas Tuchel said after England’s win, clearly as taken aback as we were at the poor pitch quality for such an important venue.
It looked like it had been relayed that morning for that game. The weather has remained unsettled since, only adding to concerns that the playing surface will have deteriorated further.
We are not talking mud patches of the 1970s here. But this is the US, where everything is bigger and better. The playing surface, like with everything else associated with the MetLife, isn’t even on par with every other host city.
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When Donald Trump revealed he had lobbied Fifa president Gianni Infantino to suspend an automatic one-match ban on Folarin Balogun, breaking precedents to let the US team’s star striker play in a vital game, fans around the globe were united in disgust.
Among them was Miguel Maduro, a former chair of Fifa’s own governance committee. He felt “outraged” by the organisation’s “scandalous” decision, apparently made to please Trump, who Infantino cravenly awarded a Fifa peace prize to last year.
But Maduro was not surprised by what unfolded, because the former Portuguese government minister knows from bitter personal experience how far Infantino will go to gain political favour.
The law professor joined Fifa in 2016, hoping to clean up the association after multiple corruption scandals, only to be sacked just eight months later over decisions that he says threatened the vested interests of Infantino and his supporters.
Maduro is glad the Balogun controversy “took place before the eyes of the entire world”, exposing how Fifa really works behind the scenes. Speaking to The i Paper from Lisbon, he argues it’s just one example of the “serious systemic governance problems that plague Fifa”.
Following the uproar, Trump claimed he did not tell Infantino what to do about Balogun’s ban, insisting he merely asked for it to be reviewed because he “didn’t think it was a foul” – despite also saying he “didn’t know” what a red card was. Infantino insisted he told Trump that only Fifa’s “independent judicial bodies” could lift the ban, not himself.
Yet it has since been revealed the decision was taken by just a single person: Fifa’s disciplinary chairman Mohammad al-Kamali, who didn’t consult any of his 17 fellow committee members, unlike in 100 previous cases.
After European football’s governing body Uefa called the Balogun process and decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable”, Infantino’s critics have been hoping it may lead to his downfall in elections next year.
Maduro thinks this is sadly unlikely due to his own experience of Fifa from the inside.
Infantino briefing Donald Trump on how red cards are used while visiting the White House in 2018. The Fifa boss awarded the President a ‘peace prize’ last year (Photo: Al Drago/Getty)
Sacked for standing up to Infantino
Having played the game at amateur level and being a season ticket holder at famous Lisbon club Sporting, Maduro has always been passionate about football.
He was eager to help reform Fifa after Sepp Blatter’s humiliating resignation as president in 2016, and having been elected to lead its governance committee, thought he would have an ally in Blatter’s successor. After all, Infantino had taken over promising to “restore and rebuild a new era”.
Infantino was “very eager to be liked and to seduce people”, Maduro says, but “once we took a couple of decisions that he very strongly disliked, he stopped even talking to me at all”.
Maduro and his committee were supposed to make decisions independently, to ensure Fifa was following codes and meeting standards, but he says several attempts to influence him led him to consider resigning. Then, a year before the 2018 World Cup in Russia, a major flashpoint arose.
Russia’s deputy prime minister at the time, Vitaly Mutko, wanted to stand for re-election to Fifa’s main decision-making council. Maduro and his team blocked this because it would breach political neutrality rules, potentially making the organisation vulnerable to direct influence from the Kremlin.
Maduro says Infantino was worried this decision would upset “the political cartel that depends on him”, imperilling his presidency if he failed to overturn it.
He recalls: “Someone speaking on behalf of the president was trying to convince me to change our decision. I said: ‘We’re not going to change. I understand this may be politically complicated for the president and Fifa, but we’ve been appointed to apply the rules equally to everyone. I’m well aware that in a few weeks, you can replace me and my colleagues, but you will face a reputational risk with that.’ This person replied to me: ‘You are right, but it’s one week of bad press, and then it goes away.'”
Sure enough, he was told two months later his position was not being renewed – effectively firing him – and other senior ethics officials were also let go. Maduro says the message Infantino sent out was clear: “If these people don’t do what I want, I replace them.” Although the president doesn’t directly control appointments, he makes it known “who he wants there, who he doesn’t want there”, says the law professor.
His sacking caused such fury that Maduro was called to testify before a UK parliamentary hearing. He told MPs that Fifa behaved “like a state beyond a state“, operating “without the rule of law”. Its culture was “extremely resistant to accountability, independent scrutiny, transparency and the prevention of conflicts of interest”, he said. Fifa rejected these claims at the time, saying it “always respected” committee decisions.
Folarin Balogun, right, was given an automatic one-match ban for a red card after this tackle but Fifa later suspended it for a year (Photo: Michael Steele/Getty)
Consolidating power
Over the last decade, Maduro says it has been “deeply frustrating” to see Infantino consolidate control. “He decides who gets those revenues, how those revenues are distributed between the football associations and between different people in the ecosystem of football, including the presidents of the football associations that vote to elect and re-elect the president,” he says.
It also means Fifa’s supposedly independent committees “ultimately do what the president wants”, acting as Infantino’s “instruments”.
He points out how Infantino avoids media scrutiny by rarely granting interviews – and when he appeared at a press conference in June, it was his first in three years.
Maduro also expects Fifa will bend its rules and allow Infantino to stand a fourth time in 2031, on the basis that his first term – when he replaced Blatter – did not last a full four years.
Fifa did not respond when approached for a response, but a spokesperson said last month: “Fifa underwent deep rooted governance and management reforms over the last decade with a clear focus on transparency and on its mandate to develop football all around the world.” Arguing it has been “transformed”, they said the organisation is now a “role model”.
Infantino has claimed that “every dollar” made from World Cup ticket sales, which have been dogged by allegations of price manipulation forcing fans to pay huge sums, “goes back to the development of football” and is invested in children’s “hopes and dreams”. Responding to the Balogun controversy, he maintained that Fifa committees “operate autonomously” and their independence is “essential to the credibility and integrity of football”.
Why it’s so hard to challenge Fifa
French fans protested against Infantino during their match with Morocco this month (Photo: Chris Brunskill/Getty)
The Balogun scandal has refocused attention on Fifa and allegations about corruption.
Maduro highlights how Fifa acted in a similar way to ensure Cristiano Ronaldo was not suspended for Portugal’s first two games at the World Cup this summer, despite being banned for violent conduct against the Republic of Ireland.
It also tweaked the qualification criteria for last summer’s Club World Cup so that global superstar Messi would appear with his club, Inter Miami.
What angers Maduro most, however, is that Fifa “manipulated the rules” for Saudi Arabia to host the World Cup in 2034. He explains that encouraging Spain and Portugal to co-host the 2030 tournament together with Morocco, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay meant the following edition could not be hosted again in Europe, Africa or South America, because of rules on alternating host continents – making it “almost certain” the Saudi bid would have no rivals.
Maduro supports the Reboot Fifa campaign launched by sports ethics group FairSquare, which is lodging a “class action” complaint against Infantino after the World Cup. But he worries Fifa is virtually immune to public and political uproar, unless global sponsors “take their money away”.
“I’m deeply skeptical of any likelihood of any reform,” he laments. “There are people in the world of football who know there’s something deeply wrong in how Fifa is governed, but they cannot speak publicly about it. If they do, they are sidelined.” He admires Norway’s football president Lise Klaveness for criticising Infantino but says: “She is a lonely voice. She has to be very careful.”
If the scandals continue, he thinks they will encourage fans to believe conspiracy theories that matches are fixed by biased referees. The biggest tragedy, he says, would be if “people start to distrust the actual outcomes of matches”.
The best pundits don’t just explain sport. They illuminate it. They switch on the lights and invite the viewer into a world most of us will never experience first hand.
I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside some of the very best across a host of sports. Some shine on their own – Sir Chris Hoy on the cycling or Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill at the athletics – you’re working with people who have forgotten more than most of us will ever know.
Others thrive as part of an ensemble. I adored working with Osi Umenyiora and Jason Bell on the BBC’s NFL coverage. They were naturally funny, insightful without sounding like textbooks and generous enough to let viewers inside the psychology of elite sport.
That’s what the best pundits always do. They never lose sight of what a privilege it was to play at the highest level and they remember that television punditry isn’t about showing everyone how clever you are, it’s about pulling back the curtain and carefully telling the viewer something they didn’t know.
It is also a brutally difficult job. The studio may feel cosy, but somewhere beyond the cameras are millions of viewers, all armed with an opinion and, these days, a social media account. Every slip of the tongue, every misplaced statistic and every unpopular opinion is dissected with forensic enthusiasm. Football fans can spot a mistake from the half-way line and they’ll tell you before you’ve finished your sentence.
So, who has survived the microscope and actually flourished at this World Cup? I was asked to pick the six pundits who’d make my dream six-a-side team and mark them out of 10. Feel free to disagree. Just try not to do it in capital letters.
Joe Hart 9/10
Photo: BBC
I nearly gave Joe a perfect 10, but an old boss once told me there is no such thing as a perfect performance and that is always rattling around my head.
Hart is a natural pundit and he’d make my team even if we were playing rush goalie.
His enthusiasm is infectious, his insight refreshingly honest and he has a knack for making everyone around him better. He’s never afraid of the awkward conversations and his assessment of England’s faltering final half-hour in the semi-final hit the nail on the head.
He was constantly taking us inside the heads of the players and his description of relishing the chance to face football’s biggest names was exactly the sort of insight only someone who’s lived it can offer.
Wayne Rooney 8/10
Photo: Getty
My wife still claims she doesn’t catch every word Wayne says but he has really come alive at this World Cup. There are remarkably few genuinely world-class footballers who make the transition effortlessly into punditry.
When the game comes as naturally as breathing, explaining it to everyone else isn’t always easy but Rooney has managed to get the ball out from under his feet. The build-up to the Argentina game – expertly marshalled by Mark Chapman – was the gold standard of coverage and Rooney was at the heart of it.
He’s funny when the moment demands it, serious when it matters and, crucially, comfortable with the fact that his opinion still carries enormous weight.
Calling the overturning of Folarin Balogun’s red card a “disgrace” and insisting FIFA “should be ashamed” made headlines around the world and he is still famous enough for current superstars like Erling Haaland to call him out when he said he would row down the River Mersey if Norway made the last eight. Football never forgets.
Emma Hayes 8/10
The pundit who has generated the most headlines at this World Cup. ITV made a good decision to include her on their panel but followed it with a strange one to give her a chalkboard and put her on a set that looked remarkably like a kitchen.
It’s always good to try something different but Emma can hold her own on any sofa.
I had the pleasure of sitting next to Emma at a dinner a few years ago. Her knowledge of football was encyclopaedic, her tactical understanding extraordinary and she analysed the game with remarkable clarity.
The sad reality is that female pundits still operate under a harsher spotlight than their male counterparts. A man can misremember something and it’s shrugged off as a slip of the tongue. A woman makes the same mistake and it risks becoming tomorrow’s headline.
Emma knows her stuff and it would have been nice to see a bit more of her at this World Cup without a piece of chalk in her hand and nowhere near a cupboard.
Thierry Henry 8/10
Photo: BBC
I worked with Thierry at a couple of major tournaments for the BBC and I will never forget the first time he walked into the production office in Paris during the 2016 Euros. There were about 25 people in there and he made a point of going round and shaking the hand or every single one them and introduced himself. “Good morning. I’m Thierry”. We know!
The Frenchman has been one of the main pundits of Fox’s US coverage alongside Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexi Lalas. Just like CBS with the Champions League, Fox seem to have mastered the art of the punchy shareable clip. I am not sure if that quality translates to a 60 minute pre-game build-up but I like the fact that the Frenchman sometimes takes a thoughtful long run up on the big topics.
He was also gracious enough to praise Spain after they dismantled his beloved France in the semi-final. That’s never easy.
Ian Wright 8/10
Photo: ITV
ITV made a smart decision basing themselves in New York and surrounding Ian Wright with Roy Keane and Gary Neville. The chemistry they’ve built through The Overlap means presenters Mark Pougatch and Laura Woods can often sit back and let the magic unfold.
Wright remains one of television’s most likeable figures. Somehow he still feels like football’s everyman despite being one of the finest strikers English football has produced.
He never ducks the difficult conversations. Last year he handled the Eni Aluko controversy with enormous dignity and during this World Cup he accused those running Scottish football of “letting the country down.”
His passion never feels manufactured. He genuinely cares and if England had managed to repeat the heroics of 1966, I would have fully expected footage to emerge of Wrighty somehow celebrating from the torch of the Statue of Liberty.
Alan Shearer 9/10
Photo: BBC
I love Radio 5 Live. John Murray and Ian Dennis remain two of the finest commentators in the business and over the last few years Alan Shearer has become the perfect partner for both. He was already an excellent studio pundit but, for me, he’s an even better co-commentator.
His partnership with Guy Mowbray has become one of the strongest on TV and they absolutely bossed the highs and frustratingly low lows of that semi-final defeat to Argentina. Shearer was spot on.
I should admit a slight conflict of interest. Alan and I were unbeaten as golf partners on countless overseas trips. The only blemish came in Moscow in 2018 against a Kazakhstani businessman called Uri and his partner. Uri declared himself an 18-handicap, demanded every shot available and then proceeded to shoot 5-over-par. Some defeats deserve a steward’s inquiry.
I’ve seen first-hand how much preparation Alan puts into his broadcasting and it’s been a pleasure watching him flourish, both in the commentary box, and on The Rest Is Football.
Yes, it’s entirely subjective. Yes, I’ve probably overlooked someone who’d be top of your list. And yes, with 4 former strikers, we may be a little top-heavy but perhaps goal scorers make the best pundits and, if we have learned anything from England’s run at this World Cup, you can’t win anything with a side full of defenders.
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