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The World Cup trophy is not the only prize on offer when Argentina and France meet in Qatar on Sunday.
The World Cup winners also receive one of the more generous payouts on offer in football.
The 2022 tournament will award a record-breaking prize pot, with all 32 nations who played in Qatar receiving a payout from FIFA.
Here’s what you need to know about prize money at the 2022 World Cup and how it has changed over the years.
What is the prize money for the World Cup?
When looking at prize money for a World Cup, it must be noted that the total pot is divided up by each of the 32 teams competing.
That money is divided up dependent on performance and progress at the tournament; even teams that are knocked out in the group stage will receive a share.
For the 2022 World Cup, FIFA set the prize pot total at $44o million. That is the most that has ever been allocated for a World Cup.
How much prize money is given to the World Cup winners?
In plenty of global sporting tournaments, the winner receives the lion’s share of the total prize pot. But that isn’t the case with the World Cup.
In fact, the winners won’t even go home with 10 per cent of the $440m.
The champions — who will be crowned on Sunday, December 18 — will receive $42m, which is $4m more than France were awarded for winning the 2018 World Cup.
France received $38m for winning the 2018 World Cup (Photo: Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
That means there is still another $404m that has to be divided among the other 31 competing teams.
How is the World Cup prize money divided?
The runners-up will receive $30m.
For the beaten semi-finalists, the third-place play-off is often seen as a rather pointless fixture but those in charge will be aware that it is worth an extra $2m this year. The team that finishes third will be given $27m while there is a $25m prize for finishing fourth.
The four beaten quarter-finalists will all receive $17m while $13m is given to the eight teams that lost in the last-16.
The 16 other nations that are unable to make it out of the group stage at the World Cup are given $9m, regardless of how many points they picked up in their three games.
Each nation has to decide how much of that money they hand out to the players and staff. That is usually a decision made ahead of the tournament with performance goals laid out for wins at each stage of the World Cup.
In 2018, Noel Le Graet, president of the France Football Federation (FFF), revealed that the players would receive a 30 per cent share of the prize money.
France received $38m for beating Croatia in the final which means each player will have received more than $350,000 for the triumph in Russia.
How does the prize money at the 2022 World Cup compare to previous tournaments?
The 1982 World Cup hosted in Spain was the first iteration to include prize money.
As you might expect, the total awarded to the teams competing at the tournament has changed significantly in the last 40 years with the winners four decades ago receiving a relatively paltry $2.2m.
Italy were the first World Cup winners to pocket some prize money in 1982 (Photo: Allsport/Getty Images/Hulton Archive)
That has increased with every tournament — with a significant spike between 2002 and 2006 — to a stage where this year’s winner will receive $42m from FIFA.
Here is how every winning team has been rewarded in the last 40 years.
World Cup winners’ prize money
- 1982 World Cup | Winners: Italy — $2.2m
- 1986 World Cup | Winners: Argentina — $2.8m
- 1990 World Cup | Winners: West Germany — $3.5m
- 1994 World Cup | Winners: Brazil — $4m
- 1998 World Cup | Winners: France — $6m
- 2002 World Cup | Winners: Brazil — $8m
- 2006 World Cup | Winners: Italy — $20m
- 2010 World Cup | Winners: Spain — $30m
- 2014 World Cup | Winners: Germany — $35m
- 2018 World Cup | Winners: France — $ 38m
- 2022 World Cup | Winners: TBC — $42m
Meanwhile here is how the total prize pot has looked at the World Cup in the last 20 years (as the data is only available from 2002 onwards).
World Cup total prize money
- 2002 World Cup | Hosts: Japan & South Korea — $134m
- 2006 World Cup | Hosts: Germany — $236m
- 2010 World Cup | Hosts: South Africa — $348m
- 2014 World Cup | Hosts: Brazil — $358m
- 2018 World Cup | Hosts: Russia — $400m
- 2022 World Cup | Hosts: Qatar — $440m
How does the World Cup prize money compare to other major sporting tournaments?
Prize money varies across different tournaments and different countries.
At the World Cup, the winning team is given the prize money and then they decide how it is divided between the players and staff. Whereas in the US — in the Super Bowl, for example — the prize money is worked out by how much money each winning player will receive.
Each member of the Los Angeles Rams side that won Super Bowl LVI back in February were given $150,000 each.
The Houston Astros players that won the World Series last month each got their hands on an extra $440,000.
Members of the victorious Milwaukee Bucks side in the NBA received a prize somewhere in between those two: $270,000 each.
Football remains the most lucrative sport across the world. After winning the Champions League in May, Real Madrid picked up more than $83m in prize money.
The multi-billion pound pot available in the Premier League continues to set the benchmark for sporting prize money. This season’s winners are set to earn in the region of $200m while even relegated teams will pocket over $120m.
(Top photo: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
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