The most awaited sports tournament of the year that most people wait for is finally here. The FIFA World Cup 2022 will get started on November 20 in Qatar. The most awaited tournament only happens once every four years, and it’s a huge deal for soccer around the world. Well, we have always heard that winning is priceless but not in the case of FIFA. The FIFA World Cup trophy is the most expensive sports trophy in the world and costs a whopping €17 million (Rs 144 crore). If you see, it’s not a big deal as we all know how prestigious the tournament is. The FIFA trophy is made with 18 carats of gold and weighs 6.1 kilograms.
In the tournament, 32 teams will be seen in action during the course of a month, and the final match will take place on December 18. France is the reigning World Cup champion who defeated Croatia’s 4–2 in the FIFA World Cup final held in 2018. The tournament this year is expected to bring more than a million tourists to Qatar where the game will be held, and this is going to contribute not less than billions to the economy of the country.
However, apart from winning football’s most prestigious and expensive trophy on the sports field, the winners of the game will also take home a staggering amount of money. The winner of the FIFA World Cup will be awarded prize money of $42 million (Rs 344 crore), as per The Hindu. That’s $4 million more than France took home when they won the FIFA World Cup in 2018. But it’s not just the winning team that takes home such a huge amount of money. The runner-up of the tournament will receive $30 million (Rs 245 crore).
Meanwhile, the third and fourth-placed teams of the FIFA world cup will take home $27 million (Rs 220 crore) and $25 million (Rs 204 crore), respectively. Teams that get fifth through the eighth position in the FIFA world cup will receive $17 million each, and those between ninth and 16th place will get $13 million each. Other teams ahead of 32nd place get $9 million each. According to Bloomberg Law, how much players get paid from that prize money can vary from country to country.
The total prize money that will be given out in this year’s World cup comes to $440 million—a $40 million increase compared to the prize pool of the World Cup of 2018. It’s also nearly 15 times more than the total prize money which was $30 million included in the latest Women’s World Cup in 2019.
A $440 million jackpot is certainly a lot, but it’s nothing in comparison to the revenue FIFA 2022 world cup is expected to generate. According to Forbes, the organization is expecting to bring in $4.7 billion from the 2022 World Cup, with broadcasting rights alone accounting for $2.64 billion.
