By Tonka Radisch

Head of Editorial at Opinary

This World Cup will be remembered for more than football. Readers across our global publisher network weighed in on its biggest off-pitch controversies, and together defined what this tournament will really be remembered for.

Sure, Spain won the World Cup but is this really all what this World Cup will be remembered for? As much as we would all like the World Cup to be about football alone, no tournament escapes political rows, fan fury and scandal. So, which off-pitch stories will define this one?

Drawing on engagement and votes cast across Opinary’s publisher network, from the Times of London, MS Now, Frankfurter Allgemeine and The Hindu, three debates emerged as the defining arguments of the tournament.

The US as the Host

In the months leading up to the tournament, the US as a World Cup host was viewed with suspicion, particularly in countries where relations with the US president had grown increasingly strained. High ticket prices and troubling stories of visa refusals soured the mood. Yet few football fans could sustain their opposition for long. After fervent boycott declarations among readers of Berlin’s Tagesspiegel, those calls grew quieter the closer the opening match drew.

The Balogun Case

Concerns over Infantino’s close relationship with the US president had simmered since the tournament began, but few expected them to surface as blatantly as they did after the suspension of US striker Folarin Balogun’s red card was overturned. It’s fair to say FIFA’s reputation hit a new low this tournament. Football supporters are usually patient creatures when it comes to FIFA’s machinations, but this time, FIFA crossed a line clear enough to produce something rare: unanimous agreement among our readers, across publishers and geographies alike.

Hydration or Commercial Breaks?

For the first time ever, the games were interrupted by two hydration breaks that felt suspiciously like commercial breaks in disguise.

But it turns out fans can get used to any new FIFA invention, however loud the outcry at the start. At the opening of the World Cup, 78% of Times of London readers opposed the breaks; that figure steadily declined as the tournament wore on.