‘Bold but significant risk’: Fifa pulling out all the stops to sell Club World Cup
With ticket sales slow and concerns over burnout, football’s governing body is battling to win hearts and minds
This week Donald Trump convened a prayer meeting in the Oval Office. Gathered around the Resolute desk, constructed from the timbers of a British naval vessel, a series of pastors laid their hands on the president’s thinning hair and prayed for his success. The only other item on the desk? The enormous intricate bauble that will serve as the trophy for Fifa’s Club World Cup.
That Trump should like the look of an object lacquered in 24-carat gold plating, and designed by the New York jeweller Tiffany & Co, is not perhaps a huge surprise. But its prominent position on the world’s most consequential desktop will surely have been welcomed by Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, who left the trophy with Trump this month on his visit to the White House, a week after Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s.
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