The United States claimed World Cup glory on the weekend, but it turns out the that prize money dished out to them, and the rest of the teams that the tournament, pales in comparison to what FIFA are spending on their own propaganda.
After lifting the trophy, the US Women's National Team will take home $2 million as prize money for being the best team in the world, and while that might sound like a decent chunk of change, the men's team scooped a fund of $8 million for getting knocked out at the round-of-16 last year in Brazil, while Germany, who won the tournament, had an extra $35 million added to their coffers.
Obviously, the disparity in payouts between the men's game and the women's game is one that they need to address, and the differences in the sizes of the TV audiences worldwide may go some way to explaining it, but with the women's tournament having a prize fund of just $15 million in total compared to the $576 million the men's game gets for their version of the World Cup, FIFA is once again hitting the headlines for their financial dealings.
However, the most shocking figure to come out of the reports is that the movie that FIFA made about themselves which completely tanked and was released right before the mass arrests for corruption was given a budget of $24 million, which is more than they allotted to the entire Women's World Cup.
Strangely enough, Sepp Blatter couldn't attend the final on Sunday evening in person for some reason. We wonder why...
Via Mashable