7 | Competitions & Events

FIFA World Cup

Preparations for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 are well under way. It will be the first time that the world’s biggest football tournament has been held in the Middle East, and the first FIFA World Cup where the stadiums are so close together that fans will easily be able to attend two matches on the same day. With less than a year to go before the competition kicks off, seven out of the eight stadiums were ready for use at the end of 2021.

Expenses incurred for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 up to the end of 2021 have been deferred and will be recognised in profit or loss in 2022, the year in which the event will take place. These expenses have arisen in the process of organising the tournament, and amounted to USD 255.8 million as at the end of 2021. The main costs related to TV production at USD 97.7 million, staffing and office management at USD 72.3 million, financing of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Local Organising Committee at USD 13.7 million, competition management in the form of qualifying matches at USD 23.4 million, insurance fees at USD 9.2 million and general event-management expenses at USD 39.5 million, which includes marketing and legal costs.

Other FIFA events

Other FIFA events for 2021 include the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Russia 2021, FIFAe tournaments and the FIFA Arab Cup 2021, a new competition and one that served as the main test event for the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The event operational costs of hosting and staging the FIFA Arab Cup were mainly offset by host country contributions of USD 77.5 million.

Also included are the FIFA Club World Cup Qatar 2020, the FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania 2021 and the Olympic Football Tournaments Tokyo 2020. These events had to be postponed from 2020 to 2021 due to the global pandemic. The expenses for other FIFA events are recognised in the year in which the event takes place, and include the event organising costs, such as promotion, production, prize money, accommodation and operations.

The global pandemic also had an impact on the international match calendar, creating what proved to be insurmountable challenges in terms of hosting the FIFA Club World Cup 2021, which was postponed until February 2022 and alternative hosts were found in the form of the UAE.

The Best FIFA Football Awards 2021 were also put back to 2022. For those FIFA events that were postponed, expenses incurred up to the end of 2021 have been deferred and will be recognised in profit or loss in the year in which the event takes place.

For the cancelled men’s youth tournaments – the FIFA U-20 World Cup Indonesia 2021 and FIFA U-17 World Cup Peru 2021 – the Council decided that the hosting rights for the 2023 editions would be offered to the same countries that were due to host the 2021 editions. As a consequence, accumulated expenses will be applied to the 2023 editions, resulting in their deferral and the recognition of costs in profit or loss in 2023.

In 2021, the FIFA events from previous cycles line item mainly benefited from the release of accruals in connection with cost savings relating to the FIFA events staged in previous cycles.

“Value-in-kind and other” relates to expenses for overall operations as well as for value-in-kind costs, which include predetermined services and the delivery of goods to be used in connection with other FIFA events.

FIFA Club Protection Programme

Under the FIFA Club Protection Programme, clubs will be compensated for any injuries due to an accident sustained by their players while on duty with senior men’s representative “A” teams for matches on dates listed in the international match calendar for the period between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021. FIFA provides compensation up to a maximum amount for losses incurred by the football club during the period that the football player is temporarily totally disabled. Costs for the FIFA Club Protection Programme are costs for FIFA and are recognised in the year they are incurred.

Total incidents reported by clubs under the programme in respect of accidents in 2021 was 65. Expenses in the FIFA Club Protection Programme line item amounted to USD 22.7 million (2020: USD 10.2 million).