WORLD football governing body, the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA), has increased the prize money for countries that will participate in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The decision to increase the prize money was taken by the FIFA Council at a meeting held in Kolkata, India, on Friday. The sum of $400 million will be available for all the participating 32 countries to share at the mundial next summer.
The new prize money is 12 percent higher than the $358 million on offer at the last edition of the FIFA World Cup held in Brazil in 2014.
Nigeria will be making their sixth appearance at the 2018 FIFA World Cup that will run from June 14 to July 15.
The Council also approved the establishment of the FIFA Foundation, which is meant to provide “a solid legal and institutional basis for FIFA’s social development initiatives.”
One of the core intentions of the FIFA Foundation will be to institutionalise a commitment of the FIFA Legends to engage in such activities and act as promoters of FIFA’s aims and objectives related to social development.
The FIFA Foundation should be operational by the first quarter of 2018 and will initially comprise the FIFA President and two members of the FIFA Council, Sonia Bien-Aime and Kwesi Nyantakyi.
Later in the year, the FIFA Council will appoint a selection of respected personalities – from football and other areas of society – as additional members of the Foundation Board.
The FIFA Council also ratified the decision of the Bureau of the Council of 6 September 2017 to approve the enhanced Bidding Regulations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and appointed the members of the Bid Evaluation Task Force.
According to the Bidding Regulations, the Task Force must be composed of the chairpersons of the Audit & Compliance Committee and the Governance Committee – in this case, Tomaz Vesel and Mukul Mudgal respectively – as well as a member of the Organising Committee for Competitions (Ilco Gjorgioski was appointed), together with experts from the administration: Deputy Secretaries General Zvonimir Boban (football) and Marco Villiger (administration).
