👋 Happy New Year!

It’s officially 2025 and thought I’d take a moment to reflect on 2 things. (1) 2024 was the launch of this newsletter to compliment the 7 year old theworldcupguide.com website. 8 months after the 1st newsletter, it continues to organically grow considerably month over month, each edition averaging a nearly 75% read-rate. Thanks for joining the ride! And (2) we are only 1 year away from an international World Cup Year!

…and with that, we’re back in your inbox with the monthly digest of World Cup content!

As always, don’t forget to check the core website, theworldcupguide.com for info on how tickets work, costs of attending previous World Cups and more!

This edition covers:

The last few weeks of December was a busy time for the 2025 Club World Cup.

The following events occurred:

Regarding tickets & prices, I had access to the presale event and logged in to evaluate the availability and prices. I was mostly curious if it would be similar to 2024 Copa America where all tickets were available in the presale and prime match tickets were purchased and resold at absurd prices (and regular ticket prices were absurd). You can see these observations below.

There were also some interesting articles that discussed:

And lastly, I recently saw that Roadtrips is putting together luxury travel packages for the 2025 tournament as well.

UEFA keeps a packed international schedule with Nation’s League, Euro Qualifying, Euro Finals and World Cup Qualifying that many don’t realize UEFA doesn’t even start its qualifying campaign for the 2026 World Cup until March of this year.

The UEFA Qualifying Group Draw occurred December 13th (see results below) and there are some tense groups for the 16 spots (most notably, Group K’s Serbia vs Albania catches the eyes 👀). As Italians can attest from 2018 & 2022 failures, nothing is guaranteed.

How does qualification work? UEFA describes it best on their site so I am quoting their site below:

In total, 16 UEFA nations will qualify for the 2026 World Cup. The 12 group winners qualify directly for the World Cup; the four remaining berths are determined by play-offs involving the 12 group runners-up.

The 12 group runners-up will participate in the play-offs, along with the four best-ranked group winners of the 2024/25 UEFA Nations League that did not finish their European Qualifiers group stage in first or second place.

The 16 teams who enter the play-offs will be drawn into four play-off paths, with four teams in each. Play-off matches will be played in single-leg semi-finals followed by single-leg finals within the same international window in March 2026.

FIFA made the 2030 and 2034 hosting announcement official, but it was merely a formality as only one bid for each tournament existed.

2030 will be Argentina / Paraguay / Uruguay (each country will host their opening match) and then off to Spain, Portugal and Morocco for the remainder of the tournament. Why is a World Cup spread across 6 countries and 3 continents (where in a perfect world I’m jet-setting across all of them)? FIFA says this 3 match span pays homage to the celebration of 100 years since the 1st World Cup (1930 in Uruguay). Spreading the tournament across South America + Europe + Africa also meant only Oceania & Asia could compete for 2034.

Meaning, in 2034 we go back to Asia only 12 years later and Saudi Arabia will play hosts.

Comments:

I already discussed the bidding process for 2030 and 2034, using AI to break it down into smaller chunks. My personal opinion is I rather have FIFA just admit the World Cup is predetermined than to pretend an actual process occurs.

It also seems odd with one-bid parties that envelopes are being opened?

Some media outlets are already complaining that 2034 won’t have alcohol. In another rant, BBC goes into its 2034 thoughts. Additionally, here’s a look at the proposed, stunning 2034 stadiums.

Will I attend these tournaments? See this edition’s Q&A below.

In 2015, it was my goal to start attending the Women’s World Cup. Unfortunately, each tournament has had its challenges for me personally. Most recently, in 2023, I had everything booked (airfare, hotel, visa, tickets to the semi-final & final) but canceled last minute due to some unfortunate timing with a health item.

Hopefully 2027 will break the streak of not starting a streak; though admittedly, the 2027 AFCON tournament is also on my mind. The 2027 World Cup will take place in Brazil from 24 June to 25 July 2027.

In a bold statement regarding live sporting events, Netflix secured exclusive media rights in USA to broadcast FIFA World Cups 2027 (Brazil) & 2031 (TBD).

Many fans are concerned about the paywall and Netflix’s failure in the highly publicized (and criticized) Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul fight in 2024.

Highlights of the Forbes article about the 2027 & 2031 rights to Netflix:

It is also interesting to see FIFA select a service like Netflix and makes me wonder if they’ll continue to lean into streaming only platforms or possibly continue its investment in their own FIFA+ streaming platform. The future is impossible to predict.

Plus, UEFA did just announce record revenue for women club competitions as well.

There won’t be any drastic changes in the immediate future with 2026 media rights. For example, it was announced in mid-December that ITV and BBC Sport have secured shared UK broadcasting rights for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and 2030.

Here’s a list of all 2026 World Cup media rights as well.

In the last month, there was a theme in questions submitted so I thought I’d quickly address those publicly. If there’s interest in doing this each month, you can hit respond directly from your inbox to send a message to submit a question. I’m summarizing the topics here:

Have a friend, loved one or colleague that find this newsletter valuable? Use the button below to copy, paste & and share.

Kicking off 2025 like we ended 2024 - with shouts to Languatalk and Businesscards.io!

Interested in being featured? We are open to ideas on partnerships so definitely reply to this message or click here to send a message!