While supporters mourn, board members of some clubs are more likely to breathe a sigh of relief if a country is eliminated from the World Cup. After all, there is a lot at stake for clubs that supply internationals to national teams. Some internationals play matches for their country under difficult conditions, where injuries are looming. As they progress through the tournament, they miss more of their club’s pre-season preparation. Moreover, they will be far from rested when the competition starts again.
World football association FIFA wants to compensate football clubs for this. In combination with the prize money, she has made a record amount of 1 billion euros available for this World Cup. About a third of that goes to the players’ clubs themselves. The rest, more than 745 million euros, is prize money that goes to the national football associations, which pay part of it back to the players.
Clubs receive money if their players are in the selection during qualifying matches and also for matches at the World Cup. For the latter, FIFA pays approximately 4,300 euros per player per day of participation. What is new is that the qualifying matches during this World Cup also generate money: the players receive about half of it, about two thousand euros. By the way, ‘participation in the World Cup’ is counted liberally: the counter starts ten days before the World Cup starts and ends the day after the elimination of the national team.
Take Dutch forward Cody Gakpo: if the Netherlands does not progress beyond the group stage, his club Liverpool FC will receive just over 120,000 euros for the four weeks that Gakpo has played. This is negligible compared to the total turnover of Liverpool (one of the main suppliers of the Dutch national team): it amounted to more than 812 million euros in 2025. Gakpo is a starter for Liverpool and reportedly receives more than 15 million euros per year; he earns a ton there in about two days. If a player with such a salary cannot play due to an injury, for example, it is a great loss for the club.
Prize money doubled
And what do the unions and players actually get? The prize money for this World Cup has almost doubled compared to 2022 to 745 million euros. In addition to the starting premium of more than two million euros, participation in the group stage already earns a country team an amount of 8.5 million euros. The prize money increases considerably as the tournament progresses. For example, quarter-finalists receive more than 16 million euros and the world champion receives almost 43 million euros.
Each football association has its own agreements on how that amount is divided. For example, the KNVB donates half of the prize money to the player group, the rest is invested in Dutch football.
Of the prize money of 8.5 million euros for participation in the group stage, 4.25 million will therefore be distributed among the group of players. Interesting detail: despite the prize money, the Dutch association is very likely to make a loss due to the high costs of flights and accommodation in the US. Only if the Netherlands becomes world champion will the KNVB make a profit, albeit only 6 million euros.
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