I shared the FT with a friend and got told that I’m sooo naïve. What the graphs shows is moving money across borders efficiently and with low traceability:
Someone bought the ticket with a Visa card from Mexico or Colombia at original price.
Someone else in the US (or Canada) gets a prepaid Visa card, and deposits cash on it. Preferably slowly and randomly to avoid triggering AML red flags.
Prepaid US Visa card is used to buy a stupidly priced ticket at FIFA trading website offered by sellers in Mex/Col.
FIFA takes it cut and clean cash is deposited to Visa card in Mex/Col.
The triggers for AML checks or blocking of funds is deposits in the US and immediate cash disposals south of the border. But, not this time. This is a legit transaction with a clear economic purpose: go see a football match that everyone wants to see.
Watching the Swiss game now….seems to be loads of empty seats (although apparently people are sheltering under the stands to get out of the heat) and minimal atmosphere.
That was coming - the Swiss had given up trying towards the end.
I see FIFA are following the Arsenal trick and reporting tickets sold instead of actual admissions to the ground. Makes the attendance numbers easier to fix. Claimed was a sell-out but even at/just after the start there were visibly seats free.
While I do agree that that should ease the pain but I put it in the category of too little too late. On the day FIFA should have shouted long and hard at Trump et al that the state department had adequate time to evaluate the visa application and had approved it. To dream up excuses when a front line employee appears to have overturned that decisions just because he could isn’t right for a host of an international sporting event.
Doing a bit of database work…the France-Senegal match is surprisingly interesting. There are some sparks of that beautiful game (tactical and quick) uninterrupted by divas diving to the ground.
Knowing this France team is allegedly favorite to win the tournament takes some suspension of disbelief.
