As a little note for the weekend:

According to its latest report, FIFA have recorded $5.8bn revenues in 2022, largely due to the World Cup in Qatar. According to Wikipedia the Gross Domestic Product of Guam for 2017 was estimated to have been $5.793bn; for 2022 there were no figures available yet. For 2022 the list of GDP shows that FIFA would rank somewhere between Lesotho and the Central African Republic in terms of revenues. For a non-profit organization this is a lot.

This gives this association an incredible amount of financial and political power. And it is of course not shy to use this. It has borrowed the city of Berne around CHF1.8bn over the last six years. Apparently, the towns and cities to which FIFA has leant money had found no other lenders despite their ratings being impeccable. What is not so impeccable is of course the reputation of FIFA. The organization is mired in scandal, yet the mayors seemed not to care.

At the same time global governing body of soccer has ‚only’ donated $1m to the earthquake relief fund for Turkey and Syria.

FIFA is drowning in money says this report in the German broadsheet F.A.Z.

image credit: Money Bags by 401(K) via flickr under CC BY-SA 2.0

Good writing does not come by chance, so consider a little tip: