Empty Seats: Should FIFA Re-Evaluate World Cup Allocation?

It’s so unique, the vibe of the area, all the music with the drumming and horns. There is no other place like South Africa, it has a type of magic I cant explain, sort of a warm togetherness about it all. It brings out the love for the game there, it’s not high tech or rich but it goes back to what the game really means. Very recently that country looked like it was going to hell and now there all coming together. I think this is the perfect place to have it, it’s a terrific underdog story and it’s giving a team that may not even qualified a chance and they played well. When I look into that all yellow crowd and hear the horns I get chills

Compare this atmosphere to the German one, I’d even say the German one was boring by location. Too plain, to predictable.

FIFA is not interested in holding the World Cup in a place where every match is a sellout and access to the matches is easy. If it were, the U.S. would have already hosted more than one World Cup. The ’94 Cup set attendance records that still stand today, and it was the first World Cup ever to sell out every ticket to every game. (And that was before soccer was as popular here as it is now.)

FIFA gets most of its money from non-World-Cup-related activities, so they can afford to make decisions that are designed to spread interest in football as opposed to making the most amount of money. That’s why they can afford to send the tournament to the far end of the globe in South Africa, and why they are seriously considering sending it to Australia in 2022. (Does anyone else think they might be trying to undermine Rugby, too? I mean, if England wins the 2018 bid, they could have 3 straight World Cups in S. Africa, England, and Australia.)

Even if the stadiums are sold out you won’t hear much singing or chanting over the vuvuzelas, so it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the game.

If you are saying poor attendance = bad decision by FIFA, I think they don’t need to sell out the games to make serious money on the cup. The TV and online access has never been better, and theoretically the ratings will be higher than ever before. We have to ask ourselves what FIFA’s primary purpose is: to ensure everyone can attend the games (serve the fans), ensure money and exposure (serve FIFA), or to ensure safety and fairness of competition (serve the teams / countries)? I think, in order, it’s exposure, fairness, money, safety, attendance. That’s why SA makes sense.

How expensive are tickets relative to the South African per capita income?

the money lost on empty seats is nothing.

Having every seat filled is clearly not what it most important to FIFA.

and excellent comments! If what y’all say is true, FIFA is a most impressive organization.