What do a Saudi state oil company, an American bank, a Qatari airline and food giants have in common? Today, they are all competing for one of the most valuable commercial spaces on the planet: the World Cup. In the 2026 edition, the list of sponsors ranges from traditional brands, such as Adidas, Coca-Cola and Unilever, to companies linked to the financial system, oil, technology and governments, such as Bank of America, Verizon, Qatar Airways and Aramco. ?? Do you have any reporting suggestions? Send it to g1 This composition shows an important change: the World Cup is no longer just a showcase for large multinationals and now also brings together state-owned companies, financial institutions and groups that are part of their countries' international strategy. The transformation also appears in the numbers. For the 2023 to 2026 cycle, FIFA estimates raising up to US$13 billion, more than five times the total recorded two decades earlier. In the same period, marketing rights revenue rose from US$560 million to an estimated US$1.8 billion. FIFA revenue has grown year after year since 2006 Arte/g1 Registered in Switzerland as a non-profit association, FIFA states that it reinvests these resources in the development of football. Over the last decade, however, the entity has also faced crises related to corruption and transparency in the management of this money, which led to the adoption of new control and inspection rules. More than the growth in revenue, the way of marketing the World Cup has also changed. Over the last two decades, FIFA has reorganized the sale of the tournament's commercial spaces, expanding sponsorship categories and opening space for a greater and more diverse number of companies. When the World Cup became a global business According to Flávio de Campos, postgraduate professor in Social History of Football at USP and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Center for Studies on Football and Recreational Modalities (Ludens), the transformation of the World Cup into a global business platform began to gain strength in the 1970s. The researcher explains that João Havelange's predecessor as FIFA president, Stanley Rous, already defended a closer relationship between the entity and companies. With the election of the Brazilian leader in 1974, this model was expanded. “From then on, the World Cup began to consolidate itself as a great showcase for business and advertising, with FIFA getting closer to companies and strengthening marketing around the tournament.” The changes initiated in that period paved the way for FIFA's revenue growth in the following decades. More than the increase in the tournament's popularity, it was the way of selling commercial spaces that changed, allowing companies to expand their presence and diversify revenue sources. Until the early 2000s, sponsorship was more concentrated and brought together a smaller number of companies. From the 2010 and 2014 cycles onwards, FIFA consolidated a model that began to organize sponsors into different categories, expanding the possibilities of participation in the tournament. ? At the top are FIFA Partners, companies with global rights and long-term contracts valid for several of the entity's competitions. ? Next come the World Cup sponsors, with rights limited to the specific World Cup. ? At the base are regional supporters and local suppliers. How does FIFA divide the commercial space for the World Cup? Art/g1 Governments enter the commercial game The expansion of sponsorship categories did not just increase the number of companies in the World Cup. It also opened space for a new profile of sponsors, including state-owned companies and companies linked to governments. This change, however, happened gradually. In the World Cups held between 2006 and 2014, the main international projection strategy was still concentrated on the host countries. More than organizing matches, Germany, South Africa and Brazil took advantage of the tournament to reinforce, before the world, attributes such as stability, organizational capacity and economic potential. According to Campos, for emerging countries, hosting a World Cup represented an opportunity to increase international visibility and attract investment. In the case of the BRICS members who hosted the tournament, the objective was to present developing economies that were open to new business. South Africa sought to present to the world a country rebuilt after apartheid — a regime of racial segregation that was in force between 1948 and 1994 — while Brazil sought to project itself as a place of opportunity, leaving behind decades marked by dictatorship and successive economic crises. "At the time of the 2014 World Cup, there was a lot of talk about the idea of ??a 'window of opportunities' and the legacy of the tournament. The event allowed countries like Brazil and South Africa to be presented as places of opportunity, giving them an international visibility that they would be unlikely to achieve through other means", says the historian. At that time, although multinationals such as Adidas, Coca-Cola and Visa occupied FIFA's main commercial quotas, the image promoted by the tournament was still concentrated, above all, in the host country. This balance began to change after the Russian Cup in 2018. In addition to hosting the World Cup, the country began to occupy space in FIFA's own commercial structure through Gazprom, a state-owned energy company that became the entity's global partner. Four years later, Qatar expanded this strategy by including two companies directly linked to the government — Qatar Airways and QatarEnergy — among the tournament's main sponsors. For Campos, this movement indicates that sponsorship no longer fulfills just a commercial function and has become part of the international strategy of some governments. ?? It's called "sportswashing", a concept used to describe the use of sport as a tool to improve the image of countries, governments or companies, often diverting attention from problems