GERMANY PERSPECTIVE

Berlin covers the World Cup with a triple reading: economic, political and sporting. ZEIT Online headlines "World Cup 2026: does the billion-dollar business break football?" — a wording directly critical of the commodification of sport. FAZ amplifies with a live-blog dedicated to the "escalating protests in Mexico City before the kickoff" — a framing that insists on the social cost of the World Cup for the poorest host country. The German press also covers the investigation launched by an NGO against Gianni Infantino — the critical institutional angle is typical of the German broadsheet press, which sees in FIFA a governance deficit comparable to that of the Blatter-era. The subtext is consistent: for Berlin, FIFA has become a case study of private capture of a common good. ZEIT extends with a piece on the future of investment in football — which investors (often Saudi or Emirati) enter which clubs, and with what consequences for European fans. The German press also uses the sporting angle: the German selection, in Group E with Curaçao, Côte d'Ivoire and Ecuador, does not aspire to dominate the World Cup — sporting modesty has become a national trait after the 2022 failure. This double posture (sporting modesty plus institutional severity) summarizes the German approach: we participate but do not celebrate, we document the drift without claiming responsibility for it. This double posture (sporting modesty and institutional severity) echoes the German debate on European responsibility not to let world sport become a mere instrument of transatlantic financial speculation.