The biggest casualty of this year’s World Cup could end up being the game of football itself, and the damage could be permanent.
Two weeks in, there’s plenty for football fans to like and not to like about the 23rd edition of the FIFA World Cup. On the positive side of the ledger, many of the games have been excellent, Leonel Messi continues to boss the pitch despite his 39 years and all three host teams, the US, Mexico, Canada, have all qualified for the next round.
My highlight of the tournament so far was watching 29th-ranked Ecuador beat four-time champions Germany in a 2-1 victory last night, thereby booking itself passage to the next round. By doing so, Ecuador became only the second Latin American side to beat Germany in the group phase of the World Cup, after Mexico. Watching grown men in the stands cry with joy is what the FIFA World Cup is all about — or at least should be.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is also about making vast sums of money, much of which will be pocketed by FIFA, which controls the tournament’s most valuable and scalable revenue streams. Despite its working class roots, football is the world’s biggest grossing sport and one of the most corrupted by corporate interests.
There also appears to be no limit to the damage the Trump administration can inflict on the biggest sports show on Earth, as we warned a couple of weeks ago. It has already done serious harm through its petty, vindictive treatment of the Iranian national football side as well as its visa bans and deportations of football fans and referees.
The Iranian team has been barred from spending a single night on US soil, leaving it no choice but to fly, often large distances, to each game from its training base in Tijuana, and back again all on the same day. This puts the team at a huge disadvantage vis-á-vis its opponents. Yet despite this, Iran is still within a shout of qualifying for the next round, having drawn its first two games. If it was to pull that off, it would be a huge accomplishment.
Meanwhile, Washington is stepping up its petty vindictiveness…
As NC reader Taufiq Al-Thauwry noted, with a twist of irony, in a previous comment, the appointment of the current FIFA CEO, Giovanni “Gianni” Vincenzo Infantino, in 2016 was meant to help smooth over the constant and credible charges of corruption made against FIFA under the Sepp Blatter “regime”:
Just seems such a sign of the times to go from the quaint and old-school corruption of bribery and things to supporting genocide, war, deporting referees, blocking visas, and forcing Iran to play in, but not stay in, the US after the host’s wild aggression.
The Cradle has dubbed the event, quite aptly, the “World Cup of Exclusion”:
Intrusive security screening, restrictive visa procedures, harsh immigration policies, and ticket pricing have all fueled criticism. International fans have struggled to obtain entry, while several participating delegations have faced extraordinary restrictions.
Alfred Archer, associate professor of philosophy at Tilburg University, tells The Cradle:
“It is very important to be aware of how the US government is using the World Cup as a showcase of US border power and political control. However, this issue cannot be easily separated from the fact that the World Cup is a global celebration of football, sport, and community.”
Disfiguring the “Beautiful Game”
However, the biggest casualty of this year’s World Cup could end up being the game of football itself. Barring a serious pushback from fans and players, the damage could even be permanent. The “beautiful game” has undergone sweeping changes, most of them unwelcome, mostly in the name of profit maximization, since this World Cup began. That this is occurring during a tournament hosted primarily by the US, where money does all the talking, is no coincidence.
The three-minute cooling breaks that occur at the 22nd and 67th minute of every half in the 2026 World Cup regardless of meteorological conditions represent a radical reconfiguration of the way the game is played, and one that has left most football coaches, players and fans severely unimpressed.
Paraguay coach Gustavo Alfaro was the latest to lambaste the so-called “hydration breaks”, calling for them to be used only in cases of extreme heat. From Reuters:
The straight-talking Argentinian, among the most outspoken figures at this World Cup, said football’s continuity was being threatened and cooling breaks should only be used in extreme conditions, with agreement from both teams.
“These are more than hydration breaks. I know this applies to everybody, but I like continuity. Football is continuity and continuity is broken,” he told a press conference that lasted close to an hour.
Alfaro vented his frustration on Sunday at the drinks breaks, saying they were for commercial interests, while accusing football’s business elite of hurting fans with eye-watering ticket prices in a sport played and followed primarily by the working classes.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has defended cooling breaks, saying their usage was driven purely by sporting considerations.
Nobody is buying that. France coach Didier Deschamps tore into the stoppages in a television interview after the friendly they played on March 26, 2026, against Brazil in Boston, in which there was a three-minute pause in each period:
“It’s good for you as a TV network, to have an advertising break, but those three minutes change football completely. It doesn’t matter which team. If a team is enjoying a good spell, three minutes stop everything.”
Jürgen Klopp, the eloquent former Liverpool manager, has also launched a scathing attack on the cooling breaks:
Football is being held hostage by executives sitting in air-conditioned offices. These breaks are being presented as a shield for player welfare, a noble weapon against the heat. In reality, they are nothing more than a golden cage built for sponsors.
When I saw players standing around during cooling breaks while television timeouts dictated the rhythm of the match, I couldn’t help but ask myself: who is the World Cup really serving? The supporters? The players? Or the advertisers?
A World Cup match should flow like a river. Instead, we are building dams in the middle of it so commercials can be shown.
It’s dangerous for the spirit of the game. Football used to be the main event, but it now risks becoming background music for an advertising show.
It seems quite fitting that FIFA chose to announce the mandatory rehydration breaks at a meeting in Washington with global rights-holding broadcasters, who are among the largest beneficiaries of the rule changes. Privately, the sporting organisation had already distributed guidelines on broadcasts, reported The Athletic, which obtained the documents.
The World Cup is not the only major international footballing event to embrace cooling breaks over the past year. Conmebol, the governing body for football in South America, recently introduced a 90-second pause in each half of all matches in the two club tournaments it organises, the Libertadores and the Sudamericana.
For football bodies like FIFA and Conmebol as well as the broadcasters and global brands whose interests they primarily represent, the benefits are obvious…
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Nick Corbishley 