More than five billion people are expected to watch some part of the 2026 World Cup. In much of the world, soccer is more than a sport. It is identity, nationalism, and, for some, something approaching religion.
Which is why veteran foreign correspondent Conor Powell spent years investigating the people who control it. He joined me Tuesday to discuss before the start of the tournament.
What began as a podcast about FIFA became something much bigger. His series Lords of Soccer traces how a relatively obscure governing body became one of the most powerful institutions on earth - one that negotiates with presidents and kings, influences national policy, and shapes how entire countries see themselves.
After reporting the story, Conor arrived at a simple conclusion: FIFA is not really a sports organization, but a political institution that happens to run a sport.
The popular mythology presents soccer as a game that transcends politics. As Conor argues, politics has been in FIFA’s DNA from the start. Founded in Paris in 1904 - by, as he puts it, “the same old European men who ran everything else” - FIFA made a habit of working with whoever held power. He calls the organization “probably the biggest political backer of South African apartheid outside of the British government,” and the pattern held for decades: military juntas in Latin America, monarchies in the Gulf, democracies seeking prestige.
The clients changed. The business model didn’t.
Then television turned the World Cup into one of the most valuable properties in global entertainment, and the money poured in. So did the corruption - bribery, vote-buying, kickbacks, patronage networks stretching across continents. When the U.S. Justice Department unveiled its sweeping case in 2015, many casual fans were stunned. Conor Powell was not.
A central theme of Lords of Soccer is that the corruption was never the work of a few bad actors. It was how FIFA accumulated and maintained power.
Development funds and tournament slots doubled as political tools, dispensed by an organization that is, on paper, a Swiss nonprofit. Yet FIFA survived. If anything, it emerged stronger.
Enter Gianni Infantino, who inherited an organization facing an existential credibility crisis. To his credit, real reforms followed: more transparency, sturdier governance, and a harder environment for the old envelope-passing culture. Conor doesn’t dismiss those changes. He just declines to confuse reform with the disappearance of power.
Infantino may be cleaner than previous FIFA presidents - a low bar, but a real one. He is also the most politically connected, having cultivated relationships with world leaders across continents, including Donald Trump, to whom FIFA presented its own freshly created peace prize last December.
That relationship matters now. The upcoming World Cup, spanning the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will be the largest ever held. It promises record revenues, record audiences, and record attention - which to FIFA are three ways of saying the same thing.
It also faces a uniquely geopolitical environment. Iran has qualified - and reports suggest its team may stay in Mexico and fly in for matches rather than risk complications entering or remaining in the United States. FIFA’s promise of universal participation may collide with national security considerations beyond its control.
Nor is Iran the only problem. In a tournament built around global inclusion, access itself is becoming political. A World Cup referee from Somalia was denied entry into the United States days before the tournament because of what U.S. officials called “vetting concerns.”
Then there is the cost. Ticket prices are pushing ordinary supporters further from the world’s biggest sporting event, and fans will not be allowed to bring their own water into stadiums in the summer heat.
The host countries build the stadiums and run the trains; FIFA collects the broadcast money. It still markets soccer as the people’s game. But the people, increasingly, are priced out of it.
That is an irony FIFA can live with, because it has no competition and knows it. “The problem with FIFA,” Conor told me, “is that there is just no amount of money they won’t chase.” Complaining about FIFA is itself something of a global pastime, and it has never once dented the ratings.
The larger question hanging over 2026 is whether the World Cup can still bring people together. It is a cliché of international sport, but it feels unusually relevant today.
And yet every four years, billions of people gather around the same event. For a few weeks, citizens of rival nations share a common experience. The same goals, wins and upsets become collective memories.
After years spent cataloguing FIFA’s flaws, Conor remains fascinated by that paradox. The organization may be political, commercial, and imperfect, but the world’s game endures anyway. That may be FIFA’s greatest achievement - and its greatest source of power.
You can listen to Lords of Soccer wherever you follow your podcasts. It is an excellent series worthy of your time.
Thank you Cash Flow Collective, David Galinsky, Jane M Myers, Melissa Ebel, Edward Gregory Jones, and many others for tuning into my live video with conor! Join me for my next live video in the app.
