The World Cup Story, Part 1: Soccer and Scandal

**Ryan Knutson** (0:08)
The World Cup begins this week. 48 countries will compete in a tournament to determine the world's best soccer team. It's the world's favorite sporting competition.
A tournament full of euphoria. The Heartbreak. Surprises.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:13)
Throughout this tournament...

**SPEAKER_4** (1:17)
He's missed it!

**SPEAKER_2** (1:18)
And Brazil win the World Cup!

**Ryan Knutson** (1:26)
With this year's World Cup happening in North America, we're going to be seeing wall-to-wall soccer for the next several weeks.
But for a lot of Americans, soccer isn't their go-to sport. I mean, I'm a basketball guy. So I sat down with The Wall Street Journal's two soccer experts who've been watching the game since they were young lads.

**Jonathan Clegg** (1:46)
The earliest World Cup memory I have is from the 1990 World Cup.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:50)
Jonathan Clegg is executive news editor and England fan.

**Jonathan Clegg** (1:53)
Nine years old, England lost in heartbreaking fashion in a penalty shootout in the World Cup semifinals.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:02)
And England are out of the World Cup. West Germany are through to the final on penalty kicks.

**Jonathan Clegg** (2:11)
It is my earliest sports memory.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:13)
And just heartbreak.

**Jonathan Clegg** (2:14)
It was just, you know, perfectly prepared me for the next, you know, 35 years where it was just more of the same.

**Joshua Robinson** (2:22)
My first real memory of the tournament was USA 94

**Ryan Knutson** (2:26)
And that's Joshua Robinson, sports editor.

**Joshua Robinson** (2:29)
I grew up in England, but I'm also French.
So France is my team. And then the moment that kind of sealed it for me was France winning it in 98

**SPEAKER_3** (2:40)
Emmanuel Petit makes it three and secures the World Cup for France.

**Joshua Robinson** (2:48)
They're winning the World Cup in 1998, launched me on a life of sin and sports journalism.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:55)
Sin and sports, also a fitting way to describe FIFA, the organization that runs the World Cup. From humble origins, FIFA has grown to become one of the biggest and most powerful organizations in the world of sports and entertainment. Its main job is to dole out billions of dollars worth of TV broadcasting rights for the world's most watched sport. But it's also a non-profit based in Switzerland, which means that unlike a public company, for example, it doesn't have shareholders or regulators it has to answer to.
So FIFA executives have had a lot of room to do business in their own way. And that way has created some problems.

**Jonathan Clegg** (3:37)
Bladder's Rise starts with the controversy of the 98 vote and is sort of tainted by scandal and stench of corruption right from the very beginning.

**Joshua Robinson** (3:47)
At every major turn, there have been suspicions and very loud whispers that there were brown paper envelopes full of cash, that there were duffel bags full of cash.

**Jonathan Clegg** (3:57)
Prosecutors started poking around what was going on with this World Cup bid and what was going on with FIFA generally. Gianni Infantino saw his role as FIFA president as essentially the man to fill FIFA's coffers with as much money as humanly possible.

**Joshua Robinson** (4:16)
Infantino loves being close to power, and in Trump, he kind of found a kindred spirit.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:26)
From The Journal, this is our two-part Sunday special on the World Cup. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's June 7th.
Coming up, Part 1, FIFA, a story of soccer and scandal.

**SPEAKER_7** (5:04)
This episode of The Journal is brought to you by Harvey, an AI platform designed for legal and professional services. Built and tested by lawyers, Harvey is trusted by more than 60% of the AmLaw 100 The platform dramatically reduces time spent on research, drafting, and document review without sacrificing quality, all while meeting the highest industry standards for security and compliance. Harvey, AI, tailored for law.
Visit harvey.ai to learn more and request a demo.

**Ryan Knutson** (5:48)
Okay, so the first thing we need to establish in this conversation is, are we going to call it soccer or football?

**Joshua Robinson** (5:55)
So I have a take here. I think the whole football versus soccer debate is the most tedious thing in sports.

**Jonathan Clegg** (6:01)
Yeah, it's weird. It's the sort of thing that I thought that I cared about until I moved here and started calling it soccer, and then I realized, no, it doesn't matter.

**Ryan Knutson** (6:07)
The game is beautiful.

**Jonathan Clegg** (6:08)
Literally everyone knows what you're talking about. Exactly.

**Ryan Knutson** (6:11)
For the record, we are going to call it soccer.
Okay, so now can you tell me the origin story of the World Cup? Where did this tournament begin?