Argentina football pockets $42 million in prize money

The 2022 FIFA World Cup final is one of the biggest matches in sport and it’s also one of the richest and this year’s winner, Argentina, will take home a whopping $42 million.

Runners up, France, meanwhile doesn’t go home empty handed and will leave with a healthy $30 million.

FIFA rewarded this year’s winner with more money than ever before, cementing the World Cup as one of the richest sporting events in history.

FIFA allocated $440m in prize money for this World Cup with teams earning increasing amounts based on how far they progressed at the tournament.

The USA earned $13m for reaching the Round of 16, while England left with $17m after making the quarterfinals.

The $42 million to Argentina is the largest amount of prize money FIFA has offered to date with 2018 champions France getting $38m four years ago.

That $4m increase isn’t even the biggest to date with the winning sum jumping from $8m in 2002 to $20m in 2006.

Overall, the World Cup winner now gets over five times as much as they did 20 years ago with growing tournament revenue ensuring such profits have been handed down to successful sides.

As World Cup prize money continues to grow, it has quickly made the final the most lucrative spectacle in sport.

Its closest rival is another football game with the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League final winner pocketing $20 million in prize money.

World Cup prize money is awarded to a team’s football federation with the distribution of funds then up to them.

According to The Sporting News, how much each player receives varies, but in 2018 the president of the French Federation, Noel Le Graet, claimed they would be given 30 percent of the $38 million in prize money.

That sum works out to be $11.4m which split between the 23 squad members at the time would have seen each player earn around $495,000 for defeating Croatia 4-2 in the final.

Should the prize money be split the same way by the 2022 winners, each player is poised to make $484,000 – with the slight decrease due to the fact squads now contain three extra players.

On top of that prize money, all players at the World Cup also receive some earnings for each game they play and simply participating in the tournament.