You might remember us telling you about the movie United Passions, a film by FIFA and for FIFA. Soccer’s world governing body spent $27 million dollars to produce a movie about its own virtues and greatness.
At the time it was released, the FIFA film was panned as one of the most egomaniacal, laughable attempts at cinema in recorded history. Reports of FIFA putting forth 90% of the budget and FIFA President Sepp Blatter having creative control over how he was portrayed in the script seem too absurd to be true. Except, this is FIFA we’re talking about. In fact, the film version of Blatter actually says at one point in the movie, “The slightest breach of ethics will be severely punished.”
I’ll give you a second to get back in your chair before we move forward.
United Passions is propaganda worthy of the world’s most notorious dictators. And I know this will shock you, but the film was a box office disaster. Somehow it did not join Guardians of the Galaxy among the blockbusters of the summer. If only it had a lovable talking plant to replace Sepp Blatter as one of its stars. (Come to think of it, FIFA would be a lot better off with Groot as its president.)
According to the AP, the FIFA film has pulled in a whopping $150,000-200,000 at the box office. One would think it impossible in this day and age for a film to do that poorly, and yet somehow FIFA has accomplished the inconceivable. The film has only been shown in seven countries, which shows the toxic nature of this vanity project.
In another fact that is sure to draw eyerolls from around the world, the country where United Passions saw the most success is Russia, who just so happens to be the host of the 2018 World Cup. In fact, Russia is responsible for about 70% of the film’s revenue in theaters. Maybe a buddy cop comedy starring Sepp Blatter and Vlad Putin is next on the FIFA agenda.
For an organization with so much corruption, spending $27 million dollars to fund a movie about yourself seems like a drop in the bucket. After all, the absurdity of the FIFA film is far down the list of problems when you consider what’s happening in Qatar to the migrant workers who are dying while building palaces for the 2022 World Cup.
However, as the AP notes, that $27 million dollars could have actually been put to better use than framing FIFA’s presidents as gods among men. It could have doubled the spending on its Goal development project funding projects in developing nations. It also could have funded grass fields for the 2015 Women’s World Cup instead of forcing the top female soccer players to play on turf.
Right now many top women’s soccer players are suing FIFA over the use of turf at next year’s World Cup. FIFA has promised to hold firm in spite of the suit though. Because funding a movie that lost tens of millions of dollars is more important than treating women as second class citizens.
[AP]