A look ahead to 2023-2026

FIFA’s budgeted revenue for 2023-2026 is an unprecedented amount that is mainly driven by the expansion of its flagship tournaments, the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ and FIFA World Cup™. This growth in the commercialisation of rights will deliver a significant cycle-on-cycle increase in football development funds and reinforce FIFA’s commitment to putting its revenues back into the game.

The budget for 2023-2026 has been prepared on the basis of the International Match Calendar valid at the time of its preparation. The FIFA Council’s endorsement in December 2022 of several key strategic principles relating to the International Match Calendars and competitions for both men’s and women’s football occurred after the budget had been prepared.

The 2023-2026 budget and detailed budget for 2024 were approved by the FIFA Finance Committee in November 2022 and the FIFA Council in December 2022, with final approval due to be provided by the FIFA Congress in March 2023.

This section focuses on the highlights of the 2023-2026 budget.

Competitions & Events

The FIFA World Cup 2026™ will be the biggest event in the 2023-2026 cycle. For the first time, the competition will be co-hosted by three countries and expanded to 48 teams.

At the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™, the world’s top players will compete from 20 July to 20 August for the greatest prize in women’s football. The expanded format will now feature 32 teams, and the tournament will also be the first to feature hosts from two confederations. The event budget amounts to USD 435 million. The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 will be the first tournament hosted under the new operational model, with a local, FIFA-owned subsidiary on the ground. Despite the challenging regional and global conditions imposed by the pandemic, the new model has had the benefit of ensuring that FIFA’s preparations can continue unabated.

At its meeting on 16 December 2022, the FIFA Council endorsed several key principles related to the international match calendars and competitions for both men’s and women’s football. These changes will all have a budgetary impact and may require a budget revision at a later stage:

• A budget of USD 167 million was included for youth tournaments and will form the base of the proposals to revise FIFA’s youth tournament inventory.

• For women’s football, the current international match calendar structure will remain unchanged until 2025 and is included in the present budget. The creation of a new FIFA Women’s Club World Cup™, a new FIFA Futsal Women’s World Cup™ and the expansion of the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament from 12 to 16 teams are not considered in the current version of the budget.

• For men’s football, an expanded 32-team FIFA Club World Cup™ is set to begin in June 2025 and will take place every four years. Furthermore, FIFA will launch friendly tournaments - the FIFA World Series. Both tournaments are not included in the current version of the budget, neither for revenue nor expenses.

Development & Education

The new FIFA Forward 3.0 will increase the funds currently available under Forward 2.0 by a substantial 29%. The total investment for the benefit of FIFA’s member associations, the confederations and zonal/regional associations amounts to USD 2,250 million for the full cycle. This next stage of the programme represents an almost sevenfold increase in football development investment compared to the development programmes in place prior to 2016.

On top of the increased FIFA Forward funds, the FIFA World Cup 2026 will provide FIFA with excess revenues available for additional football development. This excess cash flow will be accessible in 2026 and beyond. Consequently, the 2023-2026 budget anticipates a dedicated Football Development Fund of USD 660 million. The objective of this fund is to strengthen FIFA’s vision to make football truly global by supporting all of FIFA’s member associations and the confederations in their endeavours to develop football in all its forms and at all levels – in line with their individual needs and the overall parameters of Forward 3.0.

A total amount of USD 102 million across the cycle will be dedicated to technical development programmes, which are tailored to each member association with the goal of increasing competitiveness around the world.

The FIFA Foundation will have an available budget of USD 38 million in 2023-2026 to help promote positive social change around the world and raise support for the recovery and reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sports infrastructure worldwide.

In order to achieve Goal 8 of FIFA’s 2020-2023 vision – to accelerate the growth of women’s football – FIFA will invest USD 71 million in women’s football development programmes across the world, in addition to those funds allocated under Forward and other development programmes.