Inside the $9bn World Cup

I grew up in Australia with almost no relationship to football. The occasional Socceroos match, maybe Italy in a World Cup if the timing was right. That was it.

Then I moved to London in 2006 and, fairly quickly, Arsenal happened. Arsène Wenger had a way of making football feel like it was trying to be something more than a result. I was gone. Twenty years on, I'm back in Sydney waking up at 3am to watch them. Some habits aren't really habits anymore.

Tomorrow is the World Cup final, and the tournament has been what it always is: genuinely beautiful, occasionally ridiculous, and worth every bleary morning.

I also spent a few years running a grassroots sports startup, which left me with a fairly clear view of where the money flows in this game and where it stops. The 2026 World Cup will generate somewhere around $9 billion. FIFA has come a long way from the organisation that used to deny that figure existed.

I don't want to be cynical about it. The product on the pitch earns those numbers. The players at this final are extraordinary.

But I keep thinking about the kids I've watched grow up wearing the jerseys of those same players. They know every goal, every haircut, every sponsor. They'll never afford a ticket to see them in person, and very little of that $9 billion is going anywhere near the pitches where they play.

FIFA will tell you the World Cup is about unity. They created a "peace prize" as a pat on the back to themselves and their US hosts, which tells you most of what you need to know about how seriously to take that. Meanwhile the commercial rights deals get longer, the host selection process remains what it is, and grassroots football keeps running on volunteer hours and sausage sizzles.

I still love the game. That won't change. I'll be up at some unreasonable hour tomorrow for the final and I won't regret it for a second. I just think FIFA's version of football and the version being played by kids on Sunday morning pitches across the world are operating in different galaxies, and only one of them is pretending otherwise.