The World Cup is back. 48 teams, three host countries, billions of eyeballs, and — somehow — Saudi Aramco as an official sponsor. Sure.

This week we go good, bad, and ugly on the 2026 FIFA World Cup through a media and communications lens. The good: why the World Cup's claim to global shared attention is actually different from every other event that gets called "the last global media event" (yes, we know we say that every time). The bad: what it means for the world's most international tournament to be hosted by a country that has spent four years making it structurally difficult for international people to enter. And the ugly: sportswashing as a communications strategy, FIFA's governance that got quieter rather than cleaner, and what Guy Debord would make of a match ball that is also a brand.

The football is still in there. Finding it just requires looking past quite a lot of other things first.

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