Where this was said
Intro: The World's Favourite Tournament Begins
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The episode opens with a rush of archival sound: the roar of Brazilian fans, a commentator's disbelief at Roberto Baggio's missed penalty, the agony of England's 1990 penalty shootout exit. Ryan Knutson frames the World Cup as the world's favourite sporting competition, one that even basketball-loving Americans are about to watch wall-to-wall. He introduces his two guides: Jonathan Clegg, executive news editor at the WSJ and an England fan whose earliest memory is the heartbreak of that 1990 semi-final at age nine — perfectly preparing him, he says, for 35 more years of the same. And Joshua Robinson, sports editor, who grew up in England but supported France, and whose life in sports journalism was launched by France's 1998 World Cup triumph. Together they set up the dual themes of the episode: the World Cup as a vehicle for joy, and FIFA as the organisation that made it global — and corrupt.
FIFA is a nonprofit based in Switzerland. Unlike a public company, it has no shareholders and no regulators it must answer to. That structural vacuum gave its executives decades of room to operate however they liked — and they did.
