OSLO: One of sport's marquee events, the FIFA World Cup, will likely be broadcast in India after all. After months of uncertainty, FIFA, the world governing body, has managed a breakthrough in talks with a media house to show all matches of the 2026 World Cup.
Talks had seemingly hit an impasse earlier this year as there was a huge valuation gap between FIFA's asking price and the prices some of India's biggest companies were offering.
They had initially come to the Indian market with an asking price of $100mn but had slashed their rates to $60mn. There weren't many takers even at that price point because of the timing (most games are scheduled to start post midnight IST).
Around the same time, a FIFA team had travelled to China to wrap a deal for the next two World Cups. Once they had gotten the stakeholders to sign on the dotted line, they had gotten into last minute talks to wrap a deal in India, their last major market without a house for the quadrennial event, scheduled to begin in US, Mexico and Canada from June 11.
At this time, it's likely that the package to show the World Cup in India will include even the event in 2030 and there is thelikelihood of the competition finding a new house.
Sources have informed this The New Indian Express that Jio, who showed the World Cup in 2022, haven't budged from their valuation and that their self imposed deadline to wrap a deal had passed.
"It's done, wait for the official announcement early next week," was how a source described the breakthrough in talks. It's likely that the ones who picked up the rights may have agreed to pay over $30mn for the same.
