World Cup winners Germany bag $35 million in prize money

By Agencies

What did the others get?

With the 2014 World Cup tournament over, now is a good time to have a look around and see how much money teams have won for their performances during the tournament. That’s right; FIFA President Sepp Blatter has got his checkbook out. Happy days. The world’s soccer governing body is set to make some US$4 billion in tax-free revenue from the 2014 Cup.

As set out by FIFA back in December 2013 the winner, receives US$35 million in prize money from soccer’s world governing body. That is approximately Shs91 trillion or Uganda’s national budget for six years based on 2014/15 figures.

The total amount of prize money rose by a whopping 37% to US$576 million for the 2014 tournament from the US$420 million handed out during South Africa 2010.  Even the runner up will bag US$25 million, while the Netherlands which won the third place gets a cool US$22 million… the loser, Brazil, and subsequent fourth place team, still get US$20 million.

Losers

Every team who got knocked out of the round of 16 made US$9 million. As for those teams who made the quarterfinal stage, they each received US$14 million.

US$9 million isn’t bad, right? Coupled with the US$1.5 million FIFA gave all 32 nations for ‘preparation costs’ I’d say that the soccer federations certainly did okay out of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. Plus, look at all the sponsorship deals some of them signed and everything else that comes with enhanced exposure after the record TV numbers.  However, here is where it gets interesting. The 16 nations who were knocked out at the group stages, how much do you think they got? The answer is US$8 million. So even if those that qualified for the round of 16 felt like they made a monumental leap forward, prestige wise, in qualifying from the ‘group of death’ and making the knockout rounds, they only received US$1 million more than Cameroon, Honduras or Australia who all finished bottom of their groups without a single point in the tournament.

Does that seem a little unfair? Perhaps. Regardless, if FIFA is dishing out prize money, it don’t see any teams complaining.  Anyway, here is the list in full as to how much money each team made from the 2014 World Cup. Do you think this is the fairest way of splitting up the humongous pot of money? Any other suggestions?