Andy's Sting In The Tale (19/12/25) "Do You Side with FIFA?"
- Andy Smith
- Dec 19
- 7 min read
This week after a truly immediate and worldwide reaction, except maybe from King Donald’s US shores where paying daft money for tickets to sport seems to have become a ‘badge of honour’, Fifa have acted.
The overwhelming global negative pushback to both Fifa’s ‘World Cup Pricing Policy’ and their specific plans have triggered a few reactions from some of ‘Jahnnie’s’ overpaid, Swiss-based minions.
Some planned, some as an attempt to confuse the ongoing anger and severe bad publicity.
The first Fifa gambit was a pre-planned, PR-Heavy, ‘Fightback Campaign’ with the core headline telling the world:
“Ticket Prices are a Non Issue”.
(AKA ‘Nothing to see here, move along’).
If you’ve been on the moon, this was because of the pent-up surge of fan interest to register for tickets.
It is important for me to clarify the worldwide registrations opened before fans were fully aware of the pricing and repercussions or even the genuine measly 8% allocation of tickets to individual associations.
Like mushrooms, we, the fans and indeed the associations were being kept in the dark up to that point.
Kept in the dark and fed Swiss-American Bullshit.
The reality is fans just want to witness their countries in the group stages and maybe beyond.
Non US residents who had no option but to join the Fifa process.
It was and is the only game in town.
That doesn’t and can’t disguise the fact that the dynamics of all aspects of the pricing model are deeply cynical and grossly obscene.
They clearly show an insight into Fifa’s views of fans.
‘Mug Punters/Cash Cows/Easy Dollars’ would sum it up.
‘Valued, Base-Level Stakeholders’ is what we should be.
Fifa have never said that and if they did it would be as believable as some of the outpourings by ‘Comical Ali’ back in the days of the first Iraq conflict.
So, Fifa’s opening ticket gambit failed miserably, and nobody, even ‘Jahnnie’, likes worldwide bad PR.
As the rumbling disquiet continued across the world someone at Fifa realised they had lost control of the ‘tickets dialogue’.
They didn’t like that.
So we suddenly got a new, unplanned and even more cynical attempt to disguise the systemic Swiss planned greed.
This week it was time to announce $60 tickets to the world to prove that Fifa are really good guys and not just ‘Official World Cup Carpetbaggers’.
But back in the real world it’s all Bollox and just a confusion tactic.
Even the Daily Mail railed back on Fifa’s behaviour and said, “it’s like a carjacker leaving you a few coins on the pavement for a taxi. Football’s grandest stage is controlled by charlatans, vandals and highwaymen in suits”.
And as I said last week it is all to keep ‘Jahnnie’ as boss.
Recycling 20-ish percent of the excess profits he and his team have manufactured means substantial monies circulating to all the FAs across the world.
The harsh reality is this buys their votes and that keeps ‘Jahnnie’, King Donald’s favourite Swiss-Italian lawyer in power.
And another reality that every fan should be aware of.
If Fifa charged fans less, they’d make less profit and country associations, participants and non-participants would get less.
The football world has changed for ever.
Simples.
This Week’s Sting
1. Lawwellness In the East End
2. Iain MacLeod’s Insight
3. Fanzone Fleecing
4. Companionship Scam Announced
5. Some Less Welcome Than Others
6. Chelsea Prize Trumps Next Year’s Winner
1. When Fan Power Turns Nasty
Some thoughts on last week’s final and also on the final few days for Scottish Football’s biggest and most successful mandarin.
St Mirren deserved their win and Celtic looked like a team in between where they were and wherever they are going.
There is also more than a slight irony that at the presentation the award of the cup is celebrated by ‘official’ fireworks.
I can see why fans like to emulate that particular habit.
The man who replaced Martin O’Neil, AKA “the newbie with the wee plastic chart”, might well end up a famous Celtic Legend but for now seems to have been ‘the wrong decision taken somewhere by someone unknown’.
My good friend and idol, Rose Reilly, informed me that in her view it wasn’t just the newbie’s ‘wee plastic chart’, it was the symbolism of the three predominant colours and with no skin in that game I hadn’t seen that as important.
There are rumours of some mistakes too in dropping one particular coach and sometimes to mix metaphors, “Sometimes, new brooms throw the baby out with the bathwater”.
But we all make mistakes and Celtic are a business that I admire.
No debt.
Money in the bank.
A well run entity.
Mistakes have been made recently and recruitment issues are there to be seen, but I’d back the team there to review and make the necessary changes because they have form.
Yes it’s complicated being a fan of an ex European giant who’ll never regain what they had in ’67.
But some fans have crossed the line between the right and the wrong things to do, and Celtic fans themselves know that.
It’s a Good Time to Use 5 League Cup Finals to Look Into How Our Game Has Changed
(Results and Scottish Players Starting 50 Years of Finals)
2025
St Mirren 3 Celtic 1
St Mirren played 1 Scot to Celtic’s 3
2015
Dundee Utd 0 Celtic 2
Dundee started 3 Scots to Celtic’s 4
2005
Rangers 5 Motherwell 1
Rangers 3 Scots to Motherwell’s 7
1995
Aberdeen 2 Dundee 0
Aberdeen 11 Scots to Dundee’s 8
1985
Aberdeen 3 Hibs 0
Aberdeen 11 to Hibs’ 11
1975
Rangers 1 Celtic 0
Rangers 11 to Celtics 10
The teacher’s strike and industrial actions up 1984 and subsequent cessation of volunteering destroyed our Schools Football main artery.
The decline didn’t happen overnight and yes it was multifactorial but nothing has ever been done about it since.
2. Iain’s Insight
Matthew Syed wrote a fine piece in Murdoch’s Times this week.
“Why FA should have been tougher on Fifa over World Cup tickets”.
One reader, Iain Macleod, commented below the article and I have copied a lot of what he wrote.
It’s from the POV of an England fan but Iain deserves a bigger audience.
“There are some issues that the four Home Union FAs must take into account that may cause them to be cautious in tackling FIFA:
1. There is one United Nations member of FIFA that enters 4 teams in International competition. FIFA could change its rules to change that position.
2. Similarly, the 4 Home FAs are given preferential treatment in the running of the game. That could be reviewed.
3. Blatter and Infantino have built their success on non-European countries support. The gravy train has rewarded Caribbean, African and Asian countries who do not have such a jaundiced view of FIFA. If Europe is so incensed, then UEFA must act. Lone countries will be picked off.
4. Despite the high ticket costs, the English fans will be one of the largest set of travelling supporters. Who doubts that these ridiculous pricing will lead to half empty stadiums and a thriving black market for English tickets. Ironically, I suspect we will see more English supporters in stadiums.
5. English fans love these global competitions. The ultimate stand of principle would be to withdraw entry. Would FIFA care? Would the average England fan thank the FA?
FIFA is institutionally corrupt, and almost proud of the fact. Infantino has all the power because no one country, or 4 in the case of the UK, could do anything to undermine him. UEFA might, but is its moral position any better?
Maybe we will have to rely on the U.S. courts again. (Sepp Blatter)
3. Learnings from Ryanair
Charge for everything, everywhere, every time.
Stuff that used to be free or seen as cheap.
Fanzones at big tournaments used to be free.
Good for atmosphere and there to look after ticketless fans.
Not this time.
Can’t get/afford a ticket?
Pay ‘Jahnnie’s’ mob.
4. Even More Learnings from Ryanair
Fans with disabilities used to get ‘companion seats’ included in their price.
A common outcome.
Jahnnie’s mob have said no to that at King Donald’s tournament.
5. Visa Nightmares Guaranteed?
If you’re an Iranian player and part of your National Service was in the Revolutionary Guard you might not be allowed into the USA.
If you’re just an Iranian fan, forget it.
King Donald’s long list of ‘undesirable and unwanted countries’ is maybe his business, but it will come into direct conflict with some of the written principles behind the world association that we call Fifa.
An organisation allegedly made up from equalities with no fear or favour based on size, or relationships.
6. Why was the Recent ‘Club World Cup’ Prize Money Higher Than the 2026 World Cup
Chelsea trousered $125 Million from the $1Billion prize fund as winners of the revised Club World Cup that just happened to be contested in the USA.
Lots of empty grounds too,
Next year’s winning country, will get just half of that at $50M from the $655M prize fund.
Makes no sense to me.
But, countries don’t take part just because of the prize funds.
That’s a cynical way of roping the big guys into a relationship that poses no future threat to ‘Jahnnie’s’ house of cards.
Sting is Andy’s Weekly Blog
I never know what I will share till Friday comes, and believe it or not, I try to always see both sides.
For instance I can see that what we all see as Fifa greed is part of their formula to feed record revenues back to member nations and keep ‘Jahnnie’ and his regime in the luxury, the level of power, and the lives it delivers for them.
I’d prefer secession and a new start but that’s ‘howling at the moon’.
What I do know for certain is the current balance is out of kilter, way out.
Fifa have forgotten that it’s ‘many a mickle that maks a muckle’.
And here’s some free consultancy Jahnnie.
‘In the world of football the fan should be king, not just the milk machine’, (in your theoretical ‘Boston Matrix’).
As always feel free to write to me about anything in football or beyond.
Andy’s Album of the Week
KC and The Sunshine Band: The Complete TK Albums
I love Miami and this compilation is Miami all over even if I first encountered it in ‘The Compass Club’ in Torquay.
It was a hot summer night, back in the day, and I remember the DJ was trying unsuccessfully to fill the dance floor but the dancers were otherwise interested.
Suddenly a switch was flicked,.
It was my first listen to ‘Queen of Clubs’.
The floor filled bizarrely with those already ‘in the know’ in a quasi ‘line-dance’ to a new band who weren’t even ever a real band but remarkable music, of its time, and still good enough to get those girls, who’ll all be Grannies by now, shaking their 70s Bootys.
‘Please don’t go’, ‘Boogie Shoes’, ‘That’s the Way’ (I like it) have been blaring out in sunny Morningside all afternoon.
happy days.
Have a great Xmas too.
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