A World Cup final is a celebration few events on Earth can rival. This one feels unfinished.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 has raised question after question.
A sanction suspended under pressure, within days, with no reasons given. The authority of referees called into question. Racist abuse of players, some of it from elected officials. Betting on every pass, every card, every corner.
The celebration will end tonight. The questions will not.
The next crisis has already begun. It has two names: money and power.
Betting has moved from the result of a match to moments a single player can produce without changing the score. A bet won by making others lose. It is an open door to fraud. And this World Cup has opened the door wider. For the first time, FIFA welcomed a prediction market as an official partner, inside the stadiums themselves.
Political influence has also moved onto the field. The sanction suspended mid-tournament came after a head of state called the president of FIFA. When the rules bend under pressure, every result is open to doubt.
So here is my proposal to FIFA: a third half. A working dialogue that starts tonight, to build the integrity framework of the 2030 World Cup before it is played.
The Council of Europe has been here before.
When thirty-nine people never came home from Heysel Stadium in 1985, the Council of Europe and its member states responded within three months with a binding treaty to keep spectators safe, since strengthened into today’sCouncil of Europe Convention on an Integrated Safety, Security and Service Approach at Football Matches and Other Sports Events. Thirty-nine states have signed it.
When doping poisoned athletics, we wrotetheCouncil of Europe Anti-Doping Convention, now binding on fifty-two states. When match-fixing reached European leagues, we adopted the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, signed by forty-three states and still the only binding treaty against the rigging of games.
Each time, the Council of Europe answered with law. It brings binding conventions, forty-six member states, and four decades of turning sport’s crises into sport’s rules.
Tonight, the final whistle will end the tournament. Let it also open the third half and the urgent work of strengthening the integrity of sport.
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