The Banking Executive Magazine - December Issue 2022

FIFA World Cup 2022 the BANKING EXECUTIVE 68 ISSUE 168 DECEMBER 2022 nificance of this year’s World Cup. The competition has been the back- bone of FIFA’s revenues. There is al- ready talk – probably motivated by professional clubs’ desire for even stronger revenues – of turning the tournament into a biennial event, or supplementing the current quadren- nial format with a quadrennial club- based competition. If the global economy’s future is very different from the past 20-30 years, this will be reflected in FIFA’s deci- sion-making. It is hard to imagine FIFA being enthusiastic about future competitions in emerging-market countries if these countries con- tribute less to world economic growth than the tournament hosts since 2010. In the 1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s, and 2011-20, global real GDP growth averaged, respectively, 3.3%, 3.3%, 3.9%, and 3.7%. The acceleration in the most recent two full decades was clearly due to stronger growth in the emerging world, and it coincides with the period when FIFA began selecting hosts from outside the traditional football strong- holds. It currently looks as though this trend could be reversed this decade, even with eight years still to go. And what about the winners this time? Most experts go no further than predicting the four semi-finalists. For one thing, the same realism with which one must approach economic forecasting applies to the World Cup as well; for another, the leaders of countries we didn’t tip to win often didn’t take it very well. Back to history; only eight countries have won the World Cup. Brazil, having won five times, is always one of the favorites, and this year’s squad seems to be one of the tournament’s strongest. Argentina, Uruguay, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and England are the other previous win- ners. Even though Italy failed to qual- ify this time around, the winner is likely to be one of the others. One of these years, England will win it again, but it could easily be any of the previous winners. Among the rest, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Portugal usually punch above their economic and population weight. Whoever wins, we will be watching for all sorts of signals about the future – just as we have always done.