March 7 – FIFA ended its last four-year cycle with revenue of $6.4 billion. The world governing body has leaked details of its finances to selected media that reportedly show cash reserves having now been boosted to $2.74 billion after concerns that reserves were dwindling.
FIFA had already raised its financial projections for the period to $6.1 million from $5 million following the Russian World Cup. The last four years has seen an unprecedented boom in football’s commercial revenues and FIFA looked to be missing out following a series sponsor withdrawals.
The figures, leaked to the Associated Press, suggest that FIFA has gone some way to minimise the potential lost opportunity but the real test will be bringing back to the organisation major sponsors for the next revenue cycle. That sales message is getting mixed with FIFA unclear over the direction of its international calendar and also whether the organisation has cleaned up its operations to enough to attract big multi-national brand sponsors back.
The figures cover the 2015-18 financial period.
“In the 2015-18 cycle, investment dedicated to FIFA’s new Forward development program was $1.079 billion of which $832 million had been approved and committed to member associations, confederations or regions by the end of last year,” said AP in its report.
Reportedly this means FIFA can raise Forward funds by $667 million to $1.746 billion in the 2019-22 cycle. National FAs will be entitled to $6 million over the 2019-22 cycle, while each of the six confederations will receive $48 million. $62 million is being made available for zonal or regional associations if they organise at least five youth and women’s competitions per year.
An analysis of FIFA’s report for the four-year cycle will be available in Insideworldfootball once the governing body releases the official figures and report.
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