UP559 Revenue-maxxing: How FIFA Changed The Game

0:00Gianni Infantino, FIFA's president, called the 2026 World Cup the greatest event that humanity has ever seen. I like a bit of hoopla, but one thing is factually true. This is the most lucrative sports event ever held. The numbers are astonishing. FIFA will make 13 billion from the four-year cycle culminating in this summer's tournament. It's nearly 9 billion of it landing this year alone. For comparison, the Paris 2024 Olympics, the other greatest show on earth, generated 5.24 billion in total for the whole Games. It wasn't always this lopsided. The World Cup actually trailed the Olympics financially until 2010.

0:36when South Africa's addition pulled in 4.9 billion against London 2012 which only made a paltry 3.23 billion. Since then the gap's only widened 18 % revenue growth from Russia 2018 to Qatar 2022 and FIFA is projecting a huge 73 % jump by the end of this summer. They've already raised the budget for the next cycle to 14 billion dollars before the tournament has even finished. So we talk about money in this episode and it's about what the money does and what the impact is on the product itself and on our relationship to the World Cup. My guests are Joey Durso, the Times journalist and author of More Than a Shirt, which talks about sports relationship with politics.

1:21And Carla Bilsch, a marketing professional from Buenos Aires, whose off-ball logic is a subset I recommend highly to you. She spent months tracing the commercial history of the World Cup to understand exactly how we got here. And Carla has a name for what we're seeing. Revenue maxing. Once you hear the numbers, that word makes complete sense. This episode was recorded a couple of weeks ago. So my predictions for Japan reaching the semifinal haven't aged well. Let's put it that way. This episode of Unofficial Partner is sponsored by our friends at the Institute of Sport Humanities, ISH. ISH educates sports current and future leaders around the world as the leading independent provider of leadership education and insight for the sector.

2:04Their Strategic Sport Leadership Masters, the MA, is for industry executives to study alongside their careers, designed for professionals who want to build on their experience, strengthen strategic thinking and connect with a global network of peers working across sport. applications are now open for the next intake on the 2026 strategic sport leadership ma starting in september visit sportshumanities.org for more information and there will be a link in the show notes carla i know joey and the sort of chain of events here was he flagged you on Substack saying you should have a look at this this is really good and then I went and looked at you know because of the sheer sort of social presence of Joey Durso he's around the place he's an unavoidable he's an unavoidable presence in our lives I sicken myself but I saw that and then I went on your Substack and he was right and it was really good so just give us a bit of context on why you did it and just a bit of background because there's there's stuff in there that we'll we'll get into well i work in product marketing and i love sports mainly football and so that's why i wanted to start off ball logic and the mission of the newsletter and the sub stack is to understand how the game is actually built but more from like the off ball lens yeah talking about more marketing strategy round decisions commercial logic that turns an athletes or a team or a club or a league into something that people will organize their lives around and especially about the World Cup the thing was for me to understanding why the World Cup became one of the biggest global products in history not from a sporting perspective but also from a commercial cultural and political perspective so that's why I wanted to dive into to dive deeper into what happened throughout the last 100 years in the history of the World Cup.

4:14Yeah, yeah. The run into this World Cup has been quite interesting, I think, because there has been a lot of business type stories or, you know, it's ticket prices or it's the cities or it's to do with sponsorship or the media rights in China and India and all of these things that we cover quite a lot and go into a lot of detail. But increasingly, there is a sort of cultural element where politics and culture come together, which I think you landed on really nicely. Joey, you've been doing, and people will know this anyway, but you came on the podcast and talked about More Than a Shirt, your last book.

4:51But you've been doing, some would say heroic social media work, linking the World Cup to shirts. Just talk to us about that for a minute. yeah um first it's great to be on with carla who i didn't have never met before virtually or otherwise but yeah her newsletter is brilliant and full of sort of numbers and hard facts which are often in short supply with people speaking very confidently about football so really good i recommend it um yeah so the book was about football shirts and how they explain the world which is mainly through sponsors you know the classic example being gazprom and how that tells the story of german gas and russian money and all that complicated politics neatly through the football shirt of Schalke in Germany and there are lots of others but yeah that was out last summer and then I sort of thinking you know the World Cup how am I going to have anything to say because of course international shirts don't have sponsors the reason for that being that FIFA don't want anyone competing with their own sponsors not through any kind of noble mission but it turns out there is an awful lot to say because every international team plays in its colours for a particular reason a particular often a really fascinating reason you know the brilliant one is Brazil and yellow.

5:55They play in yellow because they devastatingly lost the World Cup final in 1950, a deeply traumatic event against Uruguay. It was supposed to be the sort of coming out party of Brazil after the war, this sort of multiracial, exciting new country, and it was a completely devastating defeat. And so they had a competition and the shirt that they came up with was the yellow one, and then the rest is history, five World Cups. But every shirt has a story of some kind, a historical one, which is quite different to the sort of commercial stories told in sponsorship and club shirts. Yeah, and it's quite, some of them are quite counterintuitive because your assumption is it's something to do with the flag, isn't it?

6:32But quite often it isn't. Yeah, very often it is to do with the flag, but lots of the time it's not. The blue of France, for example, that's the ancient royal colour of the French monarchy from sort of 1200s. Then the revolution happened, they chopped off the king's head, but blue happened to be the colour of Paris, which made its way onto the tricolore, and they kept the blue for the sort of official thing. You know, Italy, of course, not at the World Cup, but the blue comes from the House of Savoy. So not one of the three colours on the Italian flag. So there are all sorts of stories like this from all over the world.

7:02The Pan-African colours of green, gold and red find their way onto lots of African shirts, Senegal, Cameroon. Okay, right. Let's get into the business stuff. So Carla, revenue maxing was a phrase that jumped out, which I liked and I might even use as a title for this podcast. But there's this enormous jump in revenue for this cycle compared to previous cycles. And can you just sort of take us through some of the numbers? Because, again, I was looking at that and thinking, OK, I knew this was a big one, but I didn't realise it was that big. Yes, revenue matching is a concept that came from a question from one of my readers.

7:41And the question was something in the likes of why is FIFA so greedy? And I thought that this was interesting because the answer is not just grid, but it's more like a structural reason. Because FIFA is a non-profit organization and the mission they have, the mission they state, is that it's related to the expansion and development of the game worldwide. But the challenge is that FIFA operates, and in terms of products, they operate in a very concentrated product portfolio that enables that revenue, right? So they have the men's workup, the women's workup, and now the club workup. These are the main commercial engines.

8:24But revenue matching, why I coined this term, is because its current scenario is just different from generating revenue. They are trying, I mean, FIFA is trying to optimize every possible layer of the tournament, from broadcasting to sponsorship, hospitality, ticketing, and premium experiences. And this is something that we can see in the numbers because the four-year cycle revenue that ended with Qatar, the revenue was$7 billion. And now the forecast revenue for this cycle that will end with the current World Cup is$13 billion. And I think it's also related to what Joey was talking about before.

9:07is the political layer because when we talk about development money this development money goes to regions where federations depend more heavily on this support like africa asia oceania and parts of central and south america so it's not only for the distribution purposes but also to sustain political legitimacy inside the fifa system because every federation has one vote i'm very conscious you use the phrase they're greedy and I think that's a really quite an interesting word because again it comes up a lot and the accusation you quite often get to morality around FIFA you get to a sort of people talk about previous eras of corruption and the Infantino is a sort of bond villain going around the world making money but when Infantino is looking at America when FIFA is looking at America the most capitalistic market in the world the richest sports market in the world what is wrong with making as much money as he and they can for the game from this what it could be a once in a generation opportunity yes I think that we have two concepts here and it's really interesting what you're saying because the grid concept is really tied to morality and there's you will say okay it's great for fifa to revenue mad to do this revenue matching in order to reinvest in in different regions for football right but i think that these two concepts are necessity and opportunity so the necessity is what we already talked about this idea of funding a global development machine.

10:50But the opportunity that FIFA identified is about a new commercial architecture, especially around the US markets, that includes premium buyers. These premium buyers are kind of shifting this ideal customer profile from the lifelong fund to the corporate hospitality buyer, the sponsor, the affluent consumer. And also something that it's important to understand is that the US is a market with stronger commercial infrastructure that allows different marketing and businesses strategy to develop so that's better for getting revenue and that i think that's why the infantino c5 is focusing more on the use for this revenue matching strategy yeah jerry what do you think about this because again it's just we talk about he's almost become a cartoon villain in what he has you know infantino but i find it quite useful or quite interesting just to take the take a different view just for a you know the sake of argument in some cases but what do you think what do you think about this idea that actually that's his job that's what people have come on my podcast and said several times yeah so i think there's a the core tension is where the sport is like any other business where you're just you're trying to maximize profits that was your obligation to your shareholders to whoever else or is it something different is it a social institution um and you know uk english football tickets are way cheaper often than supply and demand would indicate um you know arsenal selling tickets for like 70 quid when they could probably charge triple for that and fill the stadium but that would deeply sort of affect what the product is and what the people who go identify as and all these sort of social meaning we ascribe towards tickets um american sport is not like that they just set the profit maximizing price and often that can mean tickets cost thousands of pounds it can also mean the flip side i was in new york a few years ago and don't really know anything about basketball or the nba but the brooklyn nets were playing and it was about 18 because they desperately wanted to fill some seats on the day.

12:44But that's how most businesses work, right? Just with that pure profit motive. And sport, certainly in England and Europe and in South America, has always been very different and had different motivations. And that's coming to this huge clash now with this World Cup, with these extremely expensive tickets. Yeah. I was listening to him, his press conference, obviously one of the things, he doesn't do any. So, you know, once every three years. And Rob Harris asked a question about ticket prices from Sky Sports. And his answer, Infantino's answer, was quite interesting because he mentioned Mandani, the New York mayor.

13:17And, you know, he then said, right, you know, he'd made enormous amounts of positive publicity for Mandani by offering up cheaper 50 quid tickets for the World Cup. And then he said, well, actually, we've been doing that and we've done, we've sold many at$60, but we don't get the positive PR. and then he turned and sort of said, oh, well, maybe I sacked the PR or my PR isn't very good or whatever. He was making a joke. But there is something in that, in terms of there's a question about, should they do it? Should FIFA behave like a business? Which is Joey's question. If they don't, then other organisations will make the money that is in football.

13:57And one of the arguments, again, the pro-Infantino argument is that he is plugging leaks quite a lot. So the World Cup has changed. And one of the reasons the number has gone up sharply in Carla's analysis is that there's less money leaving the FIFA ecosystem, as they would call it, because they're taking a take on the secondary ticketing market. They're owning the hospitality market. Each of those would be defined as a leak from the economy because that money goes to third party organizations or companies, profit making companies who are making money. and so actually his argument is always well it's better the money stays in I will take the comms wrap I'll take the PR wrap for this but it's better that it stays in the football and is distributed into football rather than it going to stub hub to ticket master to on location or whatever the third party hospitality providers are so and there's a logic to that and there's a strong logic to that because actually one of the questions is well yeah what's wrong with that yeah i suppose it's it's how do you divide the pie and how big is the pie but the pie is much bigger now in terms of hospitality because there's just so much more of it and these nfl stadiums i went to the one in dallas the ace crazy it's just so huge and so much you know just the hospitality i will not i wasn't just in a normal seat not hospitality one but the experience is so much more high-end than anything i've experienced in europe um you know even at the top English football stadiums you kind of squish into these little rows the food isn't much good like um but the US experience is just so different and so much more hospitality so much more high-end hospitality um I guess the question is do you fundamentally undermine the product by turning football into this sort of hospitality extravaganza um does the you know there'll be less singing in the stadiums for example um all those things I think it can just slightly chip away at and potentially undermine the whole thing that people love so much yeah what do you think Carla first of all it's true that the experience that the US offer is better I will have the South American father so it's perhaps a bit more biased but I went to the club work up last year and I went to the Harrock Stadium now Miami Stadium for for naming reasons and the experience was amazing It was something from our world, really, really mind-changing.

16:26But the thing here is that what we know about the ideal customer, the ideal person that will see the World Cup, is not really interested in the experience. This is the fan, the global audience, that they understand and they are engaged more with the emotional logic on the tournament. If FIFA is trying to acquire this new audience that is more premium, that needs a more sophisticated offering, it's fine. But the thing is that the broader audience, the ideal customer we now have for this product is I don't think they are really needing this level of offering. And I think this is the tension we are now living from our standpoint, right?

17:13yeah i mean they again i think it's there's a question there about you're right and i there's a premiumization that's a horrible word but i think that's what we're talking about in terms of just the the elevation of the experience then you get to who is the target audience as you say there and that shift i think is fundamental in terms of well is it football fans or are they big eventers and the big eventer is the bigger marketplace they're richer on the on the whole and their expectations are driving what is being supplied and again i'm not sure the world cup is so the world cup is in america and that's the the world that is being presented to them i don't think that fifa sounds like i'm apologizing for fifa the whole time but i thought i find it it's quite interesting to work out what's happening and one of the questions is they're not they're not leading on premiumization you know they're it's a fault they're following the market there so for them to turn up into america in 2026 with a sort of 1982 type football presentation would would be totally out of kilter and also leave an enormous amount of money for other people to to ransack them yeah it'll be interesting to see what happens in spain portugal and morocco in four years time because you know there are some i went to the bernabeo a few months ago it's an incredibly premium stadium but most of them won't be and obviously the camp new of barcelona is being revamped but most of them won't be on anything like the uk the us levels and more fundamentally the local the consumers can't afford it i mean a lot of these us stadiums will pack with not necessarily kind of the one percent but just in a city like dallas or houston or atlanta there are a lot of people who are very, very rich by European standards, incomes are way higher.

19:04And the European and US incomes have diverged massively over the last 20 years. So there's just a lot more rich people in the US who think nothing of spending several thousand dollars for a trip for their family, which I think is a much, much smaller market in Europe. And yes, people will fly in and whatever else, but I don't think the prices can be as high in four years time. Yeah, that's a good shout, actually. What's the view in Buenos Aires, Carla, of FIFA and of this conversation about the ticket prices because we over here in i'm sitting you know i'm in brighton but in the uk it's been it's almost everything people are talking about and it's the the cost it's always a daily news agenda item and people obviously getting cross everyone no one likes high prices what's it what's the view from from where you are it's pretty much the same it's very similar in argentina we have two different layers on this conversation the The first one is very related to what we have talked about, how FIFA is changing this ICP, this ideal customer profile to a more sophisticated one due to the workup happening at the States.

20:12But there's an additional layer which is related to what is happening in Argentina. And in the local league, the Premier League of Argentina, the thing is that we don't have a different ownership. So both the national team and the Argentina Premier League are all the tiers are owned by AFA. And there are some teams, and I think Joey already experienced this, like Boca and River, who are charging tickets in a very pricey way for locals. I don't, for example, if Walker Jr. can charge a ticket in$300, and this is like the minimum wage in Argentina. So it's something really curious that it's happening locally because the AFA is also looking for this revenues matching, but at the cost of how local fans and how Argentinian culture is linked to football.

21:09So I think these two forces are colliding right now in the conversation here in Argentina. yeah yeah yeah no it's really interesting and we've been talking about fifa for a very long time 20 30 years in terms of you know through the setblatter years and you wrote very nicely about that period it doesn't none of the mud seems to stick doesn't and the money still goes up so you've got this juxtaposition where you've got fifa the brand of fifa which everyone has got a view on and very little of it is positive but also you've got this world cup which is just an enormous money-making festival so jerry when you're when you're talking about the politics of football do you think any of it sticks do you think that that it's actually just priced in to how we think about fifa and the way football is is run there's a sort of resignation i think and this is a view that i've heard i heard this in brazil i heard this in qatar um in those that But this is an English thing, this fury with FIFA, with the Katawak in particular.

22:15Some people see it as, you know, we invented the game, we sort of lost control of it and get beat by all these countries that we exported football to. And we can't handle that it's out of our hands now. That's the sort of, and I think there is maybe some truth in that. I think there is something that it's so far removed from the sort of English, I don't know if control is the right word, But there is certainly a fury about FIFA in England that I certainly subscribe to in many of the arguments that it's just not, people don't feel the same way elsewhere. And it's interesting interrogating why that is.

22:45And you think it's a historical grudge? I think it's a grudge, but I think we sort of have a strong feeling of what the game is. I think we're very resistant to changes to formats, to changes to sort of commercialization, because the history is 150 years old. whereas in most of the world, you know, like Japan didn't get the J League until the 90s. The MLS was founded in the 80s. Lots of these countries that kind of have a decent footballing record in the modern world is really quite recent and it means that's probably that they're more open to change and, you know, I'm not saying that's my view at all.

23:19I'm probably the, I'm a cranky European up there with the rest of them but I think it's, it is a sort of, there's anger at FIFA and Qatar and all these things. Just, I think it was very English. Do you think that's true, Carla? Yes, I think it's far true, but it's also very different from region to region. For example, talking about South America, I think the anger and the discussion is leaning more towards Conmebol, which is the federation that regulates South America, instead of FIFA. And this is curious because sometimes FIFA uses the Conmebol, not in a bad way, but it's part of the ecosystem as a laboratory.

23:58For example, they implemented in the Copa Libertadores the cooling breaks. They already did it. So they didn't do the commercial outbreaks, but they did the break, like the literal break. And I was attending a match between Boca Juniors and Barcelona, the Barcelona of Ecuador. And when that happened, the people started to boot and saying, Comebol, go away. So there's where you can see where the tension is going. because they are not insulting FIFA. They are insulting the Commebol because it's the one who is implementing this. So the idea here, the general consensus, is that this is Commebol's fault, not FIFA's.

24:39That's interesting. Are people still really angry at Chiquitapia, Carla? Yes. Tell me more. What's the latest? Well, the latest is related to the use of AI in commercials for the national team. So Argentina is a country that is known for their hype and commercials related to the World Cup. And the national team always do something which is very emotional. Also, after winning the World Cup, this is something that will happen. And then these squad announcements that we have seen throughout the world, Argentina decided to do something similar, but they use AI in most of the parts, even in the landscapes of the country, which is something really easy to to capture you can take a picture and and put it into the video so people are aware annoyed not only at the creators but also at chiquitapia because he's the one who is kind of showing this level of of preparedness to the argentina national teams brands Can you just explain who he is?

25:51Well, Claudio Tapia, effectively known as Chiqui, is the head of the AFA, the Argentine's Football Association. And as I said before, since the AFA controls the national team and the leagues, he's also responsible for everything that is happening in the top tier level and in the rest of the levels. And similar to what I said before with the number of votes, well, it is said that Tapia is favoring teams that are not part of the top tier level in Argentina, the ones that are not historical, in return of votes and perpetuating in the role. The reality is that Argentinian AFA's presidency is not only a sportive role, but it's also a political role because it's related with the political tensions and dynamics that happen locally.

26:56So it's a really complicated role. And Tapia, after winning the World Cup, started to affect a bit the quality of the local league. And this is what people angriered the most, right? They sang with the most because it's affecting what the football meant in Argentina and what the football meant for fans and for people here. I was there in February. It felt like everyone just wanted to talk about this and sort of swirling allegations of corruption and whatever else. It reminds me a lot of FIFA and talking about these sort of sports administrators. With all due respect to sports administrators, most people would probably rather be talking about football players.

27:34Chants about Chiquitapia at every match and just this sort of rage. It felt like, you know, I had an amazing time in Argentina. I loved it, but I went to Brazil at a similar time and it felt like kind of Brazilian football is in a happy place and Argentinian football is in a very unhappy place, it felt to me. Yeah, absolutely. Despite the World Cup win. Sorry, it was a bit of a tangent. No, which is odd because obviously they won. So maybe it doesn't bring happiness. Winning the World Cup doesn't bring happiness. That could be... It's a burden. It's weird. That would be like Mark Bullingham's name being chanted on the terraces.

28:08Well, exactly. Richard Masters. People just don't know who these people are unless you work in the industry. They're just anonymous figures. But it's not like that. Well, it's not like that with FIFA now, right? Infantino is a household name, which kind of is probably what he always wanted when he was a sort of 45 year old lawyer in the back office at fifa and you know now look at him a few years later yeah i think there's quite a lot in that actually there's a i think you can't underestimate that and i've had this conversation with people who have worked closely with this all this and you go from just being some guy who is probably quite well paid but barely a household name in your own house to going you know the sort of trappings of being a head of state and probably more powerful than many heads of state and you can at a meeting with the president of the United States whenever you want, you first class everything.

28:54And that is probably pretty exciting and cool on a personal individual level. And I do think that probably drives a lot of this. Yeah, I mean, I completely agree. People start to have meetings like bank meeting, you know, bankers and private equity people and money and sovereign wealth. And it suddenly becomes your view and your opinion becomes very, very important because you are, you know at the apex of it and it's quite there's a there's a sort of framing of fans as voters almost and we're seeing it you know in when you transpose this to well any government really but if you look at the american market the american political moment you're seeing this time where actually the trump family it feels a lot like they view voters as just a marketplace to be exploited And that framing, I think, is quite analogous with sports governing bodies in some ways.

29:45You can sort of say, actually, you hear them talk about the passion of the fans and the beautiful game. And actually, what you're looking at is a sort of glue, the addiction of fandom. And that's exactly the nature of the relationship that's being exploited. It's quite a sort of odd thing. Just when you see him in the White House with Trump, it's quite an odd thing, isn't it? It's very odd and it's new. and during the Biden administration, there wasn't that link at all. There's stories of Infantino kind of trying to get a meeting with Antony Blinken, who's the Secretary of State, getting sort of half an hour, which was strictly on, you know, logistical issues that needed sorting out.

30:21There was none of this sort of swan in and out of the White House whenever you want, have an office in Trump Tower. And it must just be really exciting and exhilarating. And you have a, you know, secret service team all around and you stay in the finest hotels and whatever else. I think, you know, you go from being some guy to being one of the most powerful men in the world. and that must do strange things to anyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Carla, let's just finish by pushing this forward. And again, you made an interesting comparison between FIFA and Apple. And I just want you to sort of explain what that meant because I think you might be onto something there.

30:54Yes, I think the Apple comparison came from my understanding of businesses and products. And it's pretty useful, but only if we understand how it's applied and which are the limits of the comparison. So FIFA is obviously not Apple in terms of, for example, supply chain, because Apple owns and controls their product system. But FIFA does not employ players, does not own the clubs, and depends a lot of federation and governments and organizers in local cities. So if we are using a similar analogy, FIFA is closer to a platform or a marketplace than to a traditional product company. But I think what makes the comparison interesting is that FIFA is increasingly controlling the packaging.

31:44This is something that we are seeing now in the World Cup. They are controlling rules, the commercial interface, the global positioning for the World Cup. this idea that the World Cup meant something, but that means something more related to the commercial objective of FIFA. So when I compare both of them, I'm not saying like they own everything in the same way, but more like FIFA is trying to behave more like a vertically integrated product company in the way that they are designing the experience and kind of packaging experience right yeah it feels like the american influence is merged into that as well in terms of you can't get away from the fact that they look at the nfl as the sort of this beautiful model in their eyes that that's an ideal world you know infantino would be roger goodall and you would have a commissioner with a pyramid of the formula one model in many ways it's a lot of people in sports administration in the classic governing body world just are always moaning because they have no control over anything or they're always being sort of bitten from below and above and actually what they really want are just straight lines and complete control over the the world which is impossible in sport i think joey finish us off with a bit of your hopes and dreams for the World Cup?

33:10Well, I'm a, despite all the stuff I write about and talk about, I'm a football optimist. I think it's very hard to ruin. I think some people try quite hard. I think these hydration breaks are really bad, but I think it's magical and wonderful. And I'm really excited about the whole thing, despite a lot of the quite bad stuff going on around it. I mean, you know, the stadiums are full. People are paying incredible amounts of money to watch these games. You know, good luck to them. I think the football is going to be really exciting. I think the expanded group thing is kind of working we saw with Kate Bird in Spain nil nil they're not because I think the elite love the the sporting science and nutrition all these things are so high now that a bunch of basically amateurs from the Dutch second division or whatever can can compete with the world's best even if they probably won't win um so I think these other things actually can make football making football almost more competitive or making the lower teams better in the long term so I think there's other things that are making this maybe a better spectacle um yeah i think a lot of what's going on is really bad but it'll never i think the world cup is the pinnacle of human civilization and it'll be extremely hard to mess that up i think carla i'm also optimistic about this because the meaning of the world cup the relationship with the world cup still comes from fans the great shift is how this morning is going to be captured and distributed but the reality is that the ones that are creating the meaning are fans and i think your dog agrees as well in the background yes i'm sorry it was like it's a typical scenario of my everyday life so we call it authenticity it's it's what separates us from radio four uh he says right okay listen and who's going to win argentina again yes i well i i hope so i think it's that there's there are great chances but what workout is showing us is that everything is so unpredictable in this group stages.

34:59Let's see what the future unfolds. Joey? I'd love to say England, but I think the France, I just can't get past the depth of that France team. You know, the whole first 11 could be injured and they still look really good. It's just so volatile and unpredictable. That's what's so great. You could pretty much predict the quarter finalists and you'd get most of them right. But beyond that, anyone really can be anyone. And the favourites are not favourites by that much. Bit of a cop-out answer, but there you go. You? Well, I've got to, well, there's a sort of romantic, okay, England, obviously I want to win.

35:25I think that rather than go for France or Argentina, I will go with Spain. My second, I've just come back from Japan and they are my absolute favourite team of the moment. And so I'll go for a semi-final, Japan in the semi-final, which is a bit of a bit of an ask, but we'll see.

35:55Thank you.