The World Cup has only just started, and FIFA has already suffered a humiliating defeat

Advertisement

Opinion

The World Cup has only just started, and FIFA has already suffered a humiliating defeat

Peter FitzSimonsColumnist and author

June 13, 2026 — 5:00am

June 13, 2026 — 5:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Told yers.

Last week, I suggested that to boost flagging World Cup ticket sales, FIFA should give one of its peace prizes – no, really – to everyone who buys a ticket. This week, it emerges that the Cup’s problems run much deeper than that.

Complaints start with the Americans having turned the whole thing into a premium entertainment product rather than a sporting festival for the people. Tickets for popular matches are going for tens of thousands of dollars, while other matches will likely be played before sparsely populated stands.

Loading

There is also the issue of supporters and officials from various countries being hassled at the American border (see the referee from Somalia who was sent home). Further criticism focuses on the fact that as the whole tournament is so dispersed throughout the American continent, there will be no atmosphere, and that in those few places where people are gathering in force, the accommodation costs would kill a brown dog.

Advertisement

FIFA president Gianni Infantino, however, waxed dismissive on the US being appalling hosts of the World Cup and doesn’t care at all about the Yanks sending the Somalian official home.

“We need to respect,” he said, “that we are not the kings of the world who can rule over governments and police forces and I don’t know what. We are a sports organisation; we try to do our best with the means that we have.”

Exactly. What sporting organisation can truly say that one time in its history – ONE TIME – it hasn’t given a peace prize to a demonic despot (as FIFA did with Donald Trump in December), and kowtowed to all the other outrages – all of which should have been foreseeable, and none of which have been addressed?

Jonathan Liew in the Guardian said it well: “Gianni Infantino is, of course, the symptom rather than the disease here. And yet, given his own self-image as a kind of messianic pan-global statesman, there is a certain irony in the fact that this summer will cement his legacy as one of sport’s greatest cowards: a weak and petty man who lost control of his own tournament. A man who quivered in the face of genuine conviction. A man who had the world’s most powerful cultural force in his hands, and ended up giving it away.”

Advertisement

Stars and gripes

Celebrity magnifies. Fame focuses.

Those in the public eye, only have to do the tiniest thing out of the ordinary, make the mildest comment, and they can make headlines. (Did I tell you about the time I ran into Greg Norman at a restaurant and he said, “Hello Peter”? It was just amazing! Five hundred words coming right up, boss.)

It is just the nature of the beast. And that is why, cleverly disguised as a fellow traveller on the 9.40am Qantas flight to Maroochydore on Monday, I kept my eyes on the prize: the out-of-state Queensland Origin team members heading north to join their confrères for their camp on the Sunshine Coast, in the lead-up to Wednesday’s Origin II.

Advertisement

I just knew they’d do something, say something, reveal something that would give me the easiest of column items. But that’s the thing, they gave me nothing, nothing I tell you!

They just looked like a nice enough bunch of blokes having a bit of a chat. All of them were dressed casually, with no signs they were a team, as they filed past me to sit in economy. (That, at least was a surprise. Professional athletes – the likes of Cameron Munster, Lindsay Collins and Harry Grant – about to generate a spectacle worth tens of millions, and they’re squeezed into cattle class. What gives?)

Ditto, as I watched them closely at the luggage carousel. Come on, give me one swear word, one shove – even inadvertent – of a passing member of the public, and I’ll have your guts for garters.

But, nothing. Just a bunch of blokes, having a laugh and a chat. Collins even helped a woman lift a heavy bag off the carousel, but we can ignore that, as it doesn’t fit the narrative I’m looking for.

Still, watch them on Wednesday evening, when they put their Maroons jerseys on, and run out against our blokes at the MCG. They will explode, and wipe the Blues from the park. You heard it here first.

Advertisement

They call me the Sage.

Lack of reaction shows we’re getting somewhere

The most promising thing about the reaction to former NRL player Kane Evans revealing this week, to James Bracey, that he is gay?

That no one cares, particularly.

Yes, it made headlines and led the sports news bulletins, but the public reaction – anecdotally and on social media – was less stupefaction and more, “Great. What will we have for dinner?”

Advertisement

If we can establish Ian Roberts as our benchmark for public reaction to someone coming out, this was about a fifth of a Roberts, yes? The public now gets better than ever that while some players have red hair, some have blond hair and some have black hair, some are straight, some are gay and some change teams on a Saturday night.

Loading

So what? None of our business anyway.

And yes, it is also a good thing that Israel Folau – he’s alive! – appeared to support Evans, by posting a couple of love hearts on his social media account. This is clearly far removed from his previous position that all gays are destined, and deserve, to burn in hell, and a sign that he has escaped the madness of religious extremism. But, as I wrote to Folau in a text message, “a couple of positive emojis are not enough. If you have changed your stance, I respectfully submit you need to put words to it.”

No reply yet!

Advertisement

Broncos are gone – and Madge may be next

Still on the NRL – cos nothing is happening in rugby, with all the Australian teams out of the Super Rugby finals – this week will be remembered as the one during which two teams that had been regarded as finals contenders crashed and burned with no survivors.

Up against the Panthers last Sunday, the Tigers lost by a staggering 68-0 – and were very lucky to get to nil. Meanwhile, on Thursday, Souths effortlessly put the entire Broncos team, and season, to bed – tucked them in tight and turned the lights out on 2026, with a drubbing. The Broncos, remember, are the reigning premiers.

But what does it all mean? I’ll tell you.

Advertisement

There is no doubt that Brisbane’s Michael “Madge” Maguire is a good coach, and a great coach on his day. He has two premierships to his credit. But there can equally be no doubt that he has a level of intensity that wears his players out, physically and mentally. And the Broncos under his reign are cooked. Put a fork in them and turn them over, they’re done.

If I were the Broncos management, I’d be looking for a way to drop Madge off at the next station. I repeat, he’s clearly a very good coach. Just not one that players can cop in the long term.

As to the Tigers result, I suppose we have to remember it was against the Panthers, who we already know are going to beat the Warriors in the grand final to complete a singularly dull 2026 season. But still ... 68 points! To NIL?

Devastation. Reports of the Tigers renaissance under coach Benji Marshall have been greatly exaggerated. Jarome Luai does not seem interested since he got the contract with the PNG Chiefs. Even Api Koroisau is not the player he was. And there will be a lot of tears before bedtime to come.

Advertisement

How to fix them? I have no clue. And that puts me on a par with Benji and the club’s management.

What they said

Alexander Zverev, after having just made the final of the French Open, when asked about his mindset going into games: “Pure emptiness, there’s absolutely nothing in my head. To be honest, we’re athletes. Very few of us have anything in our heads anyways. So sometimes it’s easier to be stupid and not to think too much.” He went on to claim his first grand slam title.

This could potentially be the greatest “Michael Clarke” of all time. Upon arriving in Spain, Pope Leo XIV (previously known as Robert Prevost) was asked if he supported Real Madrid or Barcelona: “The Pope is for all teams. Prevost is for Real Madrid.”

Advertisement

Nathan Lyon: “I’d love to make spin bowling cool.”

Maja Chwalinska on how her life will change after earning more money by getting to the final of the French Open than her entire career earnings: “I’ll adapt. I’ll definitely work hard. I’ll give my all to be better each and every day, and I’ll see what the results will be. I’m definitely grateful for this time, but it’s in the past now.”

Tigers coach Benji Marshall after his side lost 68-0 to Penrith: “Everything in our game that we could possibly get wrong, we got wrong. It looks like with the scoreline that we’re not trying. The point is, we’re so dumb with the ball, we can’t defend our errors, we’re tackling so much, then we get brain dead, and we can’t compete.”

Greg Chappell on where cricket is heading: “If a child who has barely completed his physical development can step onto the global stage and effortlessly humiliate elite international bowlers, it exposes a systemic illness within the sport. [Vaibhav] Sooryavanshi is the ultimate canary in the coal mine, showing us that the modern environment has been engineered to make bowling extinct. Sooryavanshi is 15.

Advertisement

Serena Williams coming back to play doubles at Queens at the age of 44: “I had nothing better to do. I got tired of sitting at home. My kids are out of school for the summer, so why not?”

Dragons coach Dean Young after Cronulla beat them: “It’s disappointing. Everyone probably got to see what the new Dragons looked like and got a good look at what the old Dragons looked like. It was a game of two halves.” Someone had to say it.

The Bulldogs’ Jacob Kiraz, on how he was able to recover more quickly than expected from a calf injury: “I give it all to God because even all the doctors were saying that it was a grade two, and I should be out for six weeks. God’s on my side.” Can we call this for what it is, narcissistic delusion on an industrial scale? Or would that be religious prejudice?

Former NRL hell-raiser Mitchell Pearce to TFF in an interview last week on his conversion to Islam and being a teetotaller: “I do my prayers every day. I believe in one creator ... When I’ve started to pray, and I’ve lived clean, my prayers give me peace, and for me, that’s what life’s about. I found something that gives me an alignment that I was missing. It keeps me feeling more pure.”

Maroons coach Billy Slater on naming Murray Taulagi on an extended bench: “He knows what it takes to be a Queenslander.” What is he referring to? Discuss!

Advertisement

Advertisement

Mirra Andreeva. Aged 19 and a bit, she is the youngest French Open women’s singles winner since Monica Seles in 1992.

Bangladesh. Defeated Australia in an ODI for just the second time and the first since 2005. What’s worse, no one cared. Did you even know Australia were playing one-day internationals at the moment? And then they beat us again top win the series. Still no one cared.

Alexander Zverev. First German man to win a grand slam since Boris Becker at the 1996 Australian Open. Zverev finally won a slam final on his fourth attempt.

New York Knicks. Completed a record NBA finals comeback from 29 points down to take a 3-1 series lead.

RIP Les Hayes. The deeply admired former Roosters forward, who was in the premiership-winning squads of 1974 and ’75, played more than 200 grade games and was also a professional boxer. He passed away this week, of dementia.

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

More:

FIFA World Cup

Opinion

For subscribers

Donald Trump

Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X.

Click here to read article