Not OP, but I would guess: "hydration breaks" to inject commercials, half-time shows that felt alien to much of the core audience, and various rule-bending shenanigans (Ronaldo, Balogun).

The Iranian team’s treatment is a prime example. The Somalian ref being denied entrance is another. And the Balogun red card is a double example (it shouldn’t have been a red card in the first place, but the precedent that the President of the host country can get a call overturned is even worse).

- The number of teams expanding weakened the group stage to a point of being ignorable

- The extraordinary pricing of the tickets

- "Hydration breaks" to cater for TV advertising

- The US red card being rescinded after a phone call from an interested party

- Argentina's free pass throughout

FIFA has been corrupt since the days of João Havelange, although his stance was broadly to bring football to more countries and just needed a way to finance that (enter stage left, Coca-Cola, and stage right, Adidas and ISL), but it started getting really wild after him.

It's gone unchecked. There was talk of the English FA pulling out of UEFA and FIFA some years ago, as there was a perception the soul of the game had been tarnished by both orgs.

This is a good first step, and I hope FIFA gets itself sorted. I hope UEFA also gets its house in order.

First, it was a new formula of the tournament with more teams which explains the headlines about a someone setting a new record every 2 days.

Second, the hydration (ads!) breaks were clearly used to tweak some tactics, player positionning, etc, making it another half-time. It's a strategic opportunity. Why not introduce a 2 min drill, then ? - yuck- That's not football.

Third, I won't talk about that specific red card or that penalty kick, but the fact that players and staff complained so much about the refereeing issues hurts the trust we can have into the game as a whole.

And that 27 min half-time... Seriously ?!

The ticket prices and scalping (sorry, authorized re-selling to find the market clearing price) were robbery.

Sports people (I was listening to Bill Simmons) rated it pretty highly.

There was nothing egregious and it was widely attended.

The fact a ban was overturned as a political favour.

The football itself wasn't bad, it was all the other stuff - prices, unfair treatment for Iran, hydration breaks, the whole Balogun thing, the pre-game and half-time shows at the final, Trump photo-bombing the Spanish celebration, etc. Every WC has its own problems and some of these things will be forgotten about soon, but it definitely seemed more ruthlessly commercialised than ever before.

Maybe the way that Infantino nakedly advanced political favors for Trump (the f×××ing peace prize, Folarin f×××ing Balogun) and now wants a fat slice of payback?

I'm sorry, but this is an incredibly silly comment. The "shit show" was systemic at the strategic level. Of course, people who went to see a game had a good time, the "shit show" is at the competition level.

- 48 teams is too much. 32 is a great sweet spot. 48 is ridiculous, it genuinely felt like too many games. - The completely inconsistent application of VAR was scandalous. I've always been a huge opponent of VAR in soccer, and I really feel vindicated. It felt like it was only used for very pointed decisions. Either you use VAR to make no mistakes at all, or you don't use it. - The "h2o breaks" were stupid as f. They were clearly only implemented to fit in more commercial breaks. - as usual, getting the tickets is always a nightmare, but it's been like that for 20+ years

There was some good football, I'm not even bothered by the pre/mid-game shows. There were a lot of good things, but honestly it did feel like it was in spite of everything that was done to make it unbearable.