Episode 377: What They’re Not Telling You About the 2026 World Cup

This could be the most controversial World Cup in history. In this episode of The International Risk Podcast, host Dominic Bowen is joined by Professor Simon Chadwick, one of the world’s leading experts on the geopolitical economy of sport, to unpack the politics behind the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Chadwick challenges the term “sportswashing,” arguing it has been selectively applied by the global north while similar issues in co-hosts Mexico and Canada go largely unexamined. He explains why recent tournaments reveal the limits of soft power in sport, why hard power increasingly defines how host nations operate, and what the US, Mexico, and Canada are actually getting out of hosting. The conversation also covers dynamic ticket pricing, fan fears around ICE enforcement and border control, and whether FIFA’s claim to political neutrality was ever true, particularly in light of the FIFA Peace Prize awarded to President Trump.

Simon Chadwick is Professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economy at Skema Business School in Paris, and Director of its Global Executive MBA in Sport. His work examines the intersection of power, politics, money, and state interests in elite sport, and he has spent over 25 years researching and writing on football and the World Cup. He is the editor of The Geopolitical Economy of Sport: Power, Politics, Money, and the State, the first book to define and explore how sport, geopolitics, and economics interact at a global level. Chadwick has worked extensively across the sport industry with clubs, governing bodies, commercial partners, and governments, including FIFA, UEFA, Barcelona Football Club, Adidas, and the organisers of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime, to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.

Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. 

Episode Transcripe: Is the 2026 FIFA World Cup the Most Controversial in History? with Professor Simon Chadwick and Dominic Bowen

This could be the most controversial World Cup in history. In this episode of The International Risk Podcast, host Dominic Bowen is joined by Professor Simon Chadwick, one of the world’s leading experts on the geopolitical economy of sport, to unpack the politics behind the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Chadwick challenges the term “sportswashing,” argues that recent tournaments reveal the limits of soft power in sport, and explains what the US, Mexico, and Canada are actually getting out of hosting — covering dynamic ticket pricing, fan fears around ICE enforcement, and whether FIFA’s claim to political neutrality was ever true.

Guest: Simon Chadwick — Professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economy at Skema Business School in Paris and Director of its Global Executive MBA in Sport. He is the editor of The Geopolitical Economy of Sport: Power, Politics, Money, and the State, and has worked across the sport industry with clubs, governing bodies, commercial partners, and governments, including FIFA, UEFA, Barcelona Football Club, Adidas, and the organisers of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Host: Dominic Bowen

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Dominic Bowen: The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the biggest sporting event ever staged, and it spans the United States, Canada and Mexico. But beyond the football, the tournament has reignited debates about the relationship between sport, politics and power. There are questions about visas, border controls, geopolitical tensions and the use of major sporting events to shape international perceptions, and this has brought concepts such as sportswashing right into the spotlight. I’m Dominic Bowen, host of The International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the topics that really matter.

To help unpack these issues, we’re joined by Professor Simon Chadwick, one of the world’s leading experts on the geopolitical economy of sport. Simon’s work examines how sport interacts with international relations, with statecraft, with reputation, and of course with international risk. He has advised organisations including FIFA, UEFA, Barcelona Football Club, Adidas, and the organisers of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and I’m really looking forward to the conversation today.

Simon, welcome to The International Risk Podcast.

Simon Chadwick: Thank you for having me. I hope I don’t let you down after that introduction.

Dominic Bowen: I think it’ll be a lot of fun. Whereabouts in the world are you today? I know you travel a lot, Simon.

Simon Chadwick: For the time being, my feet are on the ground in England. We’re recording this just ahead of England’s first game in the World Cup.

Dominic Bowen: Fantastic. Have you been watching much of the World Cup?

Simon Chadwick: I’ve tried not to. I was on a self-imposed boycott to begin with, but I soon succumbed, and I’m being lulled into too much time watching the games.

Dominic Bowen: That happens. I’m not a big watcher of sport, even though I’m from Australia, where that is what people spend more time doing than actually working. I much prefer getting out and doing something. But my son did pull me into an Egypt versus Belgium game the other night, and it’s interesting. I went in with zero interest in either team, and it’s interesting how within a few minutes you find yourself naturally gravitating towards one team or the other, and getting personally offended when the other team does something wrong. It’s got quite a big gravitational pull.

Simon Chadwick: I think for me there’s just so much to look at, because obviously there’s the football and whatever happens in the match, but then there are the backstories of the players. You’ve got diaspora communities and political views. Then you’ve got venues in cities with sponsors that all carry a story with them. So it’s actually quite hard work watching a single game, which is why I’m trying to keep them interspersed with moments of sanity rather than moments of madness for the next five weeks.

Dominic Bowen: It’s very interesting. I had my son on one side, and I was asking him questions like, “That doesn’t look like a legal tackle — is that a legal tackle?” And he’d say, “Oh, definitely not.” Then on the other side I had ChatGPT, and I’d ask, “Why are 95% of the players wearing hot pink shoes?” There are so many different things. “What’s with that new haircut?” — that was a question for my son. “Why have they all got their hair cut in that certain way?” Even at a very superficial level, there are so many things to unpack, even more than just the kicking of the ball.

Simon Chadwick: And for the likes of FIFA, this is actually a very important phenomenon — the fact that you’re a split-screen viewer. Split-screen viewing over the last 10 or 20 years has become a very common thing. Trying to hold people’s attention, and give people content that engages them and stops them wandering off and perhaps running an internet search or looking at Instagram reels, they’ve got to make sure that when you do have these split screens, there’s something there that keeps you in the game, connected to the World Cup, and engaged with FIFA.

Dominic Bowen: That’s a good point I hadn’t even considered. And of course, the 2026 FIFA World Cup was sold as a celebration of North American openness — the scale and the commercial ambition across three major countries. But it’s arrived at a moment of unprecedented politics: trade tensions, geopolitical fragmentation, conflict in so many countries around the world, and, even in the US but not only in the US, this massive mistrust of institutions — organisations even like FIFA itself. How would you characterise the political moment that this tournament is arriving into?

Simon Chadwick: Accidental, in one word. The tournament has a little bit of history to it, and you need to go back to 2010 for that history. Back in 2010, FIFA made the decision to announce the hosting of two tournaments, 2018 and 2022. Your listeners may recall this, because it was notable for Russia winning the right to stage 2018 and Qatar winning the right to stage 2022. Russia was an interesting one, because a short time later Russia decided it was going to annex Crimea, and there were a whole number of other crimes and misdemeanours that tarnished the country’s hosting of 2018. And then, of course, you had Qatar 2022, which was arguably, before the current World Cup, the most controversial World Cup in history.

But at the time the bid was announced in 2010, Michel Platini, who was then the UEFA president, had announced that he would be voting for the United States. The story is that, under heavy pressure from the French government — particularly Nicolas Sarkozy — Michel Platini switched his vote at the very last minute from the United States to Qatar. So Qatar won 2022 when the United States really wanted to host it.

Fast forward to now, 2026. When the US bid again to host 2026 — I think this was announced in 2018 — the United States was seen as the safe option. It didn’t have the turbulence of Russia 2018 or Qatar 2022. It was during Trump’s first term, and he didn’t really seem to understand sport; the sport he did understand, and was meddling in, was golf, not soccer. And then, of course, came the re-election of Biden, and it all seemed like plain sailing. Keep in mind also that, from a FIFA perspective, not only did the United States theoretically provide stability and calm, it also potentially provided lots of money. The US market for sport is the biggest in the world; it accounts for approximately one third of global industry size. So what could possibly go wrong? You have a market that is big, mature and rich, where soccer is becoming increasingly popular, and seemingly a stable government in place. During Trump’s first term, when it was announced, Trump actually said this was great for the United States and that they were very happy about it. Biden came along and things stabilised a little. What could possibly go wrong? Well, we now know Trump gets re-elected. And we are now in the territory where maybe Qatar wasn’t the most politically controversial tournament in history. Maybe it’s the United States, Canada and Mexico — because we can’t forget these two other countries too. This could be the most controversial World Cup in history.

Dominic Bowen: And speaking about that controversy, there’s the term “sportswashing,” and I think you’ve argued that this is a term the global north has invented and selectively applies when it wants to. Do you think that double standard applies here? Is the US being held to a different standard than Qatar or Russia was, or is the same standard being applied for the first time? During the Qatar World Cup you couldn’t turn on the news without discussions about human rights abuses and how they were using it as sportswashing. But it’s much quieter this time.

Simon Chadwick: That’s a really good question. The terminology of sportswashing is interesting, because it’s almost as though the exploitation of sport for political purposes has been rebranded and relaunched — we call it sportswashing now. But let’s go back, for example, to colonial times. There’s a reason that South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand all play cricket. The reason everybody plays cricket is that during colonial times the British used cricket as one means through which to engage local audiences, to subjugate certain communities, and — let’s be honest — to cleanse image and reputation in a way that we would now call sportswashing. So my own personal view has always been that we tend to filter our view of the world through particular lenses. Whereas the British were being nice to the Australians, of course, by introducing cricket, and being nice to the Indians — we weren’t doing anything bad, really — if you look at the history of persecution and of death, absolutely, we were using sport in pretty similar ways to the kind of examples that we now accuse Saudi Arabia and Qatar, maybe even the United States, of.

What I do find interesting is that, even now, when people talk about Saudi Arabia or Qatar, or for that matter China and other nations, we tend first and foremost to see it as an attempt to sportswash. Just to clarify, sportswashing is essentially an attempt to cleanse image and reputation; it’s a distraction strategy. I see this all the time as a British guy. I always use my taxi test when I arrive in a foreign country. I jump in the taxi, sit in the front, and talk to the taxi drivers. Now, taxi drivers never say to me, “Can we talk about the colonial exploitation of the British, and how sport played a role in that?” They never talk about that. What they want to talk about is, “Who’s your favourite Premier League team?” And away we go. It’s arguable that even now Britain still does bad things — lots of countries do bad things, but Britain still does bad things — but nobody ever wants to talk to me about how Britain does bad things. People want to talk about Premier League teams.

So I do find it interesting that when people want to talk to me about Saudi Arabia or Qatar, they want to talk about bad things. And then, when there are investments in sport, suddenly this is not seen as national transformation, or a sport development strategy, or industrial development — it’s seen as sportswashing. Now, bring us to this particular tournament, and I find it interesting not just for the United States, but for Canada and Mexico too. Mexico is a country beset by extreme violence, and that extreme violence extends to politicians, journalists and sometimes academics, hundreds of whom have been killed over the last 20 years. I would invite people to consider: if this was Saudi Arabia killing journalists, academics and politicians on a regular basis, how would this shape the way in which we talk about Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the World Cup? The same thing has happened in Mexico, and nobody has ever talked about this. I’ve been monitoring the media in the two years leading up to the start of the tournament, and there’s no particular mention of it. So are we saying that Mexico is sportswashing? If we are, I’m unaware of any popular dialogue about it.

The same is true of Canada. I know there’s some degree of political instability, but certainly around Indigenous communities there are some really serious issues of discrimination, economic disadvantage, alcoholism and suicide. And yet there’s no particular discussion about this in Canada. Are we saying that Canada has successfully sportswashed its image and reputation? And then, of course, we put front and centre stage — because it’s hosting more games than everywhere else — the United States. If you’re looking at the charge sheet, where do you start and where do you end? That has been exacerbated and amplified by Donald Trump, ICE agents, the treatment of migrants, exclusions from the country and so on.

But you’ll notice something really interesting going on during the World Cup now: there’s not a lot of coverage. Now the games have started, now the circus has arrived in town and the performers have started doing their thing, some of those other discussions have dissipated. Even the political discourse has shifted from “Is this sportswashing?” towards, “Well, here are some Iranians who live in Los Angeles and they’re going to protest against the regime in Tehran.” So why does this happen? I think this is a simple exercise in power — who controls information. Most obviously, those who control information are major international broadcasters, FIFA, and the tech giants that control social media platforms. But increasingly, what we also see is the intervention — not just by the United States, but by lots of governments around the world — of governments who seek to manage the message and manage image and reputation through sport.

Dominic Bowen: I think if we consider the limits of soft power, especially when it comes to football, it’s not as strong as we expect, and it’s still hard power, from a geopolitical lens, that really matters. If we accept that premise — that soft power, like football and tournaments such as the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games, has its limits — what are the US, Mexico and Canada actually getting out of hosting these tournaments? Generally, financially, most countries come out of the Olympics and Commonwealth Games with significant deficits. Is there a world in which we see the US, Canada and Mexico achieve something really positive from hosting these games?

Simon Chadwick: So I’m a business school guy. I’m not an international relations guy or a geopolitics guy — I’m a business school guy. And so I always try to frame things in terms of who’s making money out of this. The most obvious thing to say about who makes money from the World Cup — and this is different from the Olympics — is that it’s FIFA and the people who work in world football who make money out of it. FIFA takes most of the revenue. When the circus arrives in town, does its thing and then leaves again, it takes the cash with it. Revenues from sponsorship and broadcasting, which can be considerable, are FIFA’s to keep. They are not the USA’s, Mexico’s or Canada’s; those countries don’t get a share of this.

So it becomes incumbent upon the hosts of these tournaments to work it, because any uplift in GDP is going to come from flights into the country, hotel stays, people moving around, cafés, bars, restaurants, museums, art galleries, shops and so forth. That’s a really tough ask. Certainly if you look at some of the figures around Europe for this World Cup — but also other World Cups — you’re talking about a less than 1% GDP uplift. It’s there and it’s perceptible, but it’s not significant. So why are countries doing this? If they’re not making money from it, what else are they getting? Well, there’s something in terms of football development, and leaning into some of the latest trends. Certainly in the United States, this is a validation of the United States’ soccer journey to becoming something more legitimate, respected and competitive on the field. But at the same time, there’s a certain amount of largesse in this: “We’ve got the money, we can stage it.” So it’s a projection of self-image and power to a certain extent. Yes, there is the soft power dimension, and yes, there is an attempt to manage image and reputation.

I always find it really interesting when I’m with my students. In one of our first sessions, I’ll say, “I’m going to give you the name of a country, and you tell me what you think of it.” And I’ll say “Brazil.” Straight away: “Oh yeah — Pelé and Neymar, sexy football, beaches and sunshine.” What I find really interesting is the way in which students filter their perceptions of Brazil through football. We very rarely talk about deforestation. We very rarely talk about urban violence or economic disadvantage. What we talk about is the great Brazilian players in history. So there are very clear reasons for doing it. We are beginning to see, in some parts of the world, attempts — certainly financially and economically — to use the tournament for something more: the creation of a sustainable, long-term football ecosystem, with sponsorship consultants, apparel manufacturers, and infrastructural constructors. This is certainly something that’s happening in China and in Saudi Arabia. But in general, in the very broadest possible terms, it’s almost like a national feel-good factor — not just among the citizens of the host nation, but among important people, economic decision-makers, politicians and others who potentially stand to derive some kind of benefit from hosting.

Dominic Bowen: And I wonder — there have been lots of stories about massively expensive tickets, lots of unsold seats at stadiums, gentrification pushing people out of areas, and of course the fan fears about border enforcement. We’ve seen challenges with teams and referees. How do you think the rest of the world, and especially the global South, is viewing a World Cup like this one that’s being hosted by a country — and I’m focusing specifically on America here — that is simultaneously threatening and carrying out trade wars, conducting military interventions in many places, and enforcing immigration crackdowns against many of the nations sending teams to play? How is this viewed?

Simon Chadwick: I’ve been observing and writing about football, and the World Cup specifically, for 25 to 30 years now, and every time I keep thinking it’ll be different this time. But it isn’t. What I mean is that when the first whistle blows, everything else disappears. It becomes much more about, “Has Mbappé become the leading French scorer of all time? Has somebody scored a hat-trick? Who’s lost when they really should have won?” So the global discourse and narrative is much more around playing performance than off-field issues. And then, when the circus leaves town, we tend to forget about it and move on to the next destination. I’m unaware right now of too many conversations taking place around the world about, “How was it at Qatar 2022? How are those labour market regulations coming along? Are you really treating migrant workers any better than you were five or six years ago?” Those debates, certainly in the popular imagination, have gone. Now it’s about Donald Trump and ICE agents.

So there is this peculiar three-phase scrutiny that a country, or several countries, face when hosting. Before the first whistle blows, there’s an information vacuum — there’s no football to talk about, so there’s this intense scrutiny. Then there’s the period of the football, where all we want is goals and action, and that’s what we talk about. And then afterwards, everything is forgotten, and maybe in four years’ time we’ll reflect on who the winners were, and “Do you remember that Morocco team from 2022?” So there is this peculiar set of three phases. But in general terms, my interpretation — and I do talk to people all over the world about football on a fairly regular basis, not just as football chat but in terms of professional work — is that there were genuine concerns, genuine fears, about the United States ahead of the tournament. You’ll notice that I say “the United States,” because people tended not to talk about drug cartel violence in Mexico, even though it’s a serious issue that might meaningfully impact people visiting the country. Nobody was really talking about that. And similarly, Canada was very lucky, because whatever happens in Canada stays in Canada — most people were talking about either Mexico or, even more, the United States.

So across the world, there were fears, particularly about immigration and ICE agents. We saw last summer, when the FIFA Club World Cup took place in the United States, ICE agents actually turning up at games, and people deliberately staying away because they feared detention or deportation. That was happening again in the run-up to the tournament. There were also issues around the war in the Gulf, primarily uncertainties linked to travel: would flights be available, and would they get cancelled at very short notice? People were worried about the high prices of plane tickets too. And then, of course, there was Donald Trump and the unpredictability of Donald Trump, and what he may or may not do — and that was wrapped up in fairly significant cynicism around his Peace Prize award by FIFA. So there was something not particularly palatable ahead of the tournament.

Now you factor in ticket prices, and this is still rumbling even now. What’s really important to stress to listeners is how different the ticket pricing strategy has been for this World Cup. In 2009, in San Francisco, not so far from Silicon Valley, someone figured out that you can use mobile phones, tablets and digital technology in general to create something heading towards a perfect market for tickets. We call this dynamic ticket pricing: ticket prices are set in real time by markets using digital technology. So it’s simple demand and supply. If the demand for a certain match is high, then ticket prices will rise and you’ll pay more. If demand for a certain game is low, then the algorithm will adjust prices, and ticket prices will fall. Why this was significant for people ahead of the tournament — when factoring in airlines, war, Trump, ICE and all of those other things — is that you’re having to make a decision: do I buy a ticket now, when the price seems high, or do I travel to the United States in the hope that prices might fall because the market is dictating that, or do I just stay home? And the general sentiment across many countries, I would say, was, “Let’s just stay home.”

Dominic Bowen: That’s very interesting. You mentioned the FIFA Peace Prize, which is a new thing they announced in November 2025, for someone who has taken exceptional and extraordinary actions towards peace and, by doing so, has united people around the world. Their first recipient was President Trump, which I think caused quite a lot of controversy, and FIFA took quite a hit for it. I’d like to ask you a little about FIFA. But first I’ll just remind our listeners, Simon, that if they prefer to watch their podcasts, The International Risk Podcast is always available on YouTube. Please do go to YouTube and search for The International Risk Podcast, and we’d love it if you’d subscribe and like our content.

Now, Simon, FIFA has long presented itself as politically neutral — contrary, perhaps, to awarding President Trump the Peace Prize. They’ve said that FIFA is above the interests of states, governments and politicians. I’m wondering whether that was always fiction, or if it was ever true. This political neutrality is really important because, as you said, credibility matters, actually governing the tournament becomes hard, and, as you mentioned earlier, sponsors and commercial partners then start to inherit some of this political exposure — which further erodes people’s confidence in institutions, be they political or civil. Talk to us about FIFA’s apparent neutrality, and where they actually sit.

Simon Chadwick: My view is that sport in general can never be devoid of politics. If we take football as an example, as soon as you decide to play 11 players on each team, that’s a political decision. I’m sure that when FIFA as an organisation was formalised, there will have been people saying, “Well, maybe you should have 10 a side.” Keep in mind, we’ve got futsal, we’ve got five-a-side football, but the football we all tend to watch globally is 11-a-side. That’s a political decision. So there’s something about the intrinsic politics of the game, and the intrinsic politics of the game do involve rules, and who dictates those rules, and how those rules are influenced. Just to give you one example: half-time is 15 minutes, right? Of course it is. It’s always been 15 minutes — except the World Cup final this year, which is going to be nearly 30 minutes. So why has it changed? Well, we’ve got to listen to Shakira, and we’ve also got to have some TV ads. So who’s dictating this? Big brands, big corporations, broadcasters and others are dictating this. So intrinsically within the sport, there have always been these political pressures. For anybody to say sport and politics don’t mix — well, okay, maybe they don’t mix, but they’re married to each other, unless they get divorced somehow. It’s always going to be there.

But what has become so significant over the last 20 to 25 years is the extrinsic politics. If we take Qatar as an example, Qatar bid to stage the World Cup for two reasons, I think. Number one, for the purposes of national security — to create infrastructure that enabled interdependencies with other countries that then had reasons to care about Qatar. So if something bad happened to Qatar — if, for example, Israel or Iraq attacked it — because you’ve established these interdependencies through sport, there are reasons for the United States to say, “Hold on a minute, don’t do that to Qatar,” and the French, the Italians, the British and the Germans as well. That was one reason. The second reason Qatar staged the World Cup is that they used it as the basis for physical nation building. Before the World Cup was staged in Qatar, it didn’t have a metro network, it didn’t have motorways, it had very few hotels and very few shopping malls, and now it has lots of these things. The World Cup was used as the basis for creating infrastructure. People might ask, “Well, if you want infrastructure, just build infrastructure.” But sport — and we see this at the Olympics as well — serves as a very helpful lever in enabling political decision-making. It helps politicians make quicker decisions than they might otherwise.

But nation building is also about image and reputation — brand Qatar — which is embodied within the World Cup, but also in institutions like Qatar Airways, the world’s best airline. This has also helped Qatar to project not just soft power, but to establish a particular nation brand and associations with that brand. So my view now is that we’re at a particular point in history where the extrinsic politics really are dominant, and that is being exacerbated by the global geopolitical situation, but also by the president, Gianni Infantino, who I think has shown himself highly receptive to engaging in the kind of geopolitical games that the rest of the world is playing at the moment.

Dominic Bowen: And when we look at these geopolitical games, I’m wondering what this means for the business world. For a CEO, an executive team, or a board looking at international risk, it’s always really useful to use different lenses to analyse the same situation. What does the 2026 World Cup tell business leaders about the world they’re operating in, and what they might not be getting from traditional or conventional geopolitical or international risk analysis? Are there lessons we can learn?

Simon Chadwick: Yeah, I’ve said it already: I’m a business school guy, so I’m not just looking at risk per se. What I do in my work is think about business, marketing, globalisation, managing financial flows and so forth, and I do that in the context of what I call geopolitical economy — essentially, how these issues, and ultimately decisions, are influenced by geography, by politics and by economics.

It’s really interesting. Earlier in the year, I sat with a group of master’s students in Paris and we watched Flightradar for 10 minutes. This was in January, and one of the students said, “Why are we watching a flight tracker in a class?” I said, “Well, let’s look at this place here. What do you notice?” “There seem to be some American aircraft flying over there.” “Okay, so what do you know about this part of the world?” And so we used the flight tracker as the basis for unpacking what was actually happening. We sat and watched the traffic over the Strait of Hormuz, and we got into the conversation: “Why do you think the Strait of Hormuz is so important?” Most of the students didn’t know why. Well, I was in Paris at the time. If you’re a Paris Saint-Germain fan, the money that Qatar spends on Paris Saint-Germain is derived primarily from liquefied natural gas. And there is only one way to get liquefied natural gas out of Qatar, and that is through the Strait of Hormuz. So if that closes, if there is conflict, then it will have ramifications for Paris Saint-Germain and for French football.

I’ll come back to that in a moment. But the immediate consequence of what has happened in the Gulf this year led to the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix and also the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Keep in mind what it takes to cancel a Grand Prix. You’ve got broadcasters who are locked into contracts. You’ve got sponsors who are locked into contracts. You have the contract between Formula One and the host nation. And then you’ve got all the fans who may have bought tickets to travel there. Do you give them their money back if you cancel a race? And if you do, what are the legal and financial implications, especially if they’ve also bought airline tickets to fly to the region? So these geopolitical episodes we’ve seen recently are not just great to talk about and monitor, and obviously troubling for the world — they have a bottom-line dimension.

So, back to Paris Saint-Germain. If we go back to 2017, when they smashed the world transfer record for Neymar, people thought, “Wow, they’ve got more money than they know what to do with.” They’d more than doubled the world transfer record from Pogba — which was, I think, just over €100 million — to Neymar, at just below €200 million. It was a huge deal. But what was happening at that time is that Qatar was involved in a dispute with its neighbours; it was in a diplomatic feud. What it did was spend that amount of money on Neymar as a projection of Qatar’s economic strength and resilience at a time of conflict. You’ll notice that since then, Paris Saint-Germain have retrenched from that star strategy. It’s much more about Paris, brand Paris, and local talent. Yes, there is still some overseas talent going to the club, but it’s much more about creating a coherent identity around a French city than projecting Qatari soft power. And that, in part, is a consequence of some of the unpredictability of oil and gas markets. Clearly, when Qatar’s oil and gas capacity is reduced, it can’t really justify paying lots of money for football players. So there’s a direct correlation, I think, between what happens in the Strait of Hormuz and what happens at the Parc des Princes on a Saturday afternoon.

Dominic Bowen: You’ve said you’re a business person and you look at the impacts on businesses and corporations. What would you be telling sponsors, insurers, broadcasters, airlines, hotel groups and hospitality teams that they should be looking at before and during tournaments like the 2026 FIFA World Cup? Are there things they should be monitoring for their own reputation, profitability and risk?

Simon Chadwick: What’s really interesting about a lot of organisations in sport — whether business organisations or otherwise — is that there is a general ignorance about the impact of the global geopolitical situation. That really implies a need for governing bodies, for example, to think much more carefully not just about current risks, but about future scenarios, some of the trends in the world, and how those impact what they do. But the reaction of sport over the last 10 years to the complexities and sensitivities of the issues these organisations face is to put a simple clause in contracts — a force majeure clause. So basically, if something unexpected or unpredicted happens, we can just say, “Okay, we walk away from this.”

This really goes back to George Floyd, Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter and taking the knee, which caught a lot of commercial partners off guard. If we look at the way Nike responded to it, Nike leant into it and used its support for Black Lives Matter as a brand positioning statement. But a lot of other companies, brands and organisations essentially ran away — they ran scared. And this resulted in the force majeure clause being inserted into contracts. In terms of that lineage, an example I very often draw attention to when I’m with students is Mohamed Salah. When 7 October 2023 happened, there was intense pressure in Egypt for Mohamed Salah — as a role model, a hero, an icon — to publicly denounce what was happening with the Israelis and in Gaza. And he didn’t. Eventually he made a public statement, which I personally give him credit for; it’s a very pro-human personal statement: “I don’t like killing on either side, and we’ve got to engage in dialogue.” But that really didn’t suffice across the Arab world, and even now I get asked, “Why hasn’t Salah said more?”

When you look at Salah’s list of endorsement contracts, they are primarily with North American corporations — the kind of North American corporations that, if Salah were to start making very strident pro-Palestine, pro-Gaza, anti-Israel statements, you can imagine would immediately terminate their relationship with him. Obviously, there would be an economic consequence for Salah. So that force majeure clause that increasingly is appearing is really important. I’m not saying I blame Salah — I use him just as an illustration — because you’ll notice there are not a lot of political statements right now among athletes, teams or clubs. I did find it interesting with Lamine Yamal. When Lamine Yamal took part in Barcelona’s La Liga winners’ celebration through the streets of Barcelona, on the team bus, he waved a Palestine flag. And this happened during the week that Adidas — Lamine Yamal is an Adidas endorser — launched its epic five-minute World Cup advertisement. I thought there would be some turbulence around that, but I think Adidas and Lamine Yamal’s representatives managed it very carefully so that it didn’t explode into something much bigger. But the commercial world has become increasingly sensitive to, yet remains not especially vigilant to, some of the risks and issues it potentially faces.

Dominic Bowen: And Simon, one question we ask all guests who come on The International Risk Podcast is: when you look around the world, what are the international risks that concern you the most?

Simon Chadwick: That’s a really great question. For me personally, my right to freedom of movement across the world is something that concerns me, particularly as I’m somebody who writes a lot and uses social media a lot. I’ve been in the United States during this academic year three times, and I was really concerned that a border guard might say, “I want to look at your phone, and I want to look at your social media posts.” So this denial of freedom of movement is, for me personally, really important.

But from a sports perspective, I think what concerns me most is just how little the sport industry knows about some of the issues and challenges it faces, and how little sport really responds to them. And the other thing, which strikes me whenever I talk to sports people — fans, journalists, people who work in governing bodies, people who work at sponsors — about geopolitical risk, is how immaturely formed their opinions are. Just to give you one example: I’ve talked and written a little about Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca recently, and a lot of people will say, “Well, what’s the Strait of Malacca got to do with sport?” Well, all of those mobile devices, and those e-sports games consoles, that are so central and fundamental to your commercial strategy — you do know they sail through the Strait of Malacca, right? And people don’t know that. So one of the things I’ve realised, particularly over the last five years, is how little important decision-makers in sport actually understand about the world.

Dominic Bowen: I think that’s a really important point, and you’re very correct, Simon — although I don’t have a problem with it, because that is what keeps me employed. But for anyone interested in those shipping routes and things like the Strait of Malacca, we recently had a great conversation with an expert on shipping lanes and the shipping trade, so I do encourage people to go back and listen to that. Simon, just to wrap up: as someone who knows more than most about the complexities of global sport, tell us — who is going to win the 2026 World Cup?

Simon Chadwick: As an Englishman, it pains me to say this — and I do have a love-hate relationship with this country, actually more love than hate — but my second, or maybe my third, home is France. I really can’t see who else is going to threaten France. Incredible team.

Dominic Bowen: There we go. France. I expect to see the Kalshi and Polymarket France odds go through the roof after we publish this episode, Simon. Thank you very much for your insights, and thank you so much for coming on The International Risk Podcast today.

Simon Chadwick: Thank you very much for inviting me.

Dominic Bowen: That was a great conversation with Professor Simon Chadwick, one of the world’s leading experts on the geopolitical economy of sport. Today’s episode was produced and coordinated by Andrea Crafoord-Wiklund. I’m Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening. We’ll speak again soon.