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New Delhi, India – After Argentina’s Gonzalo Montiel converted a penalty to seal a third FIFA World Cup title in December 2022 in Qatar, Lionel Messi fan Vishwas Banerjee celebrated the Albiceleste’s victory with abandon in Bangalore, a football-crazy city in southeast India.
Unable to contain her excitement, Banerjee screamed and threw off her shirt as she watched the match from the main gate on the road near midnight.
“It was a great night, watching Messi lift the World Cup,” he told Al Jazeera.
We used to dance in the streets,” said Banerjee, recalling the excitement of being over 3,000 kilometers away in a cricket-crazy country.
While Messi is expected to sing his World Cup winning song at the upcoming tournament in North America, football fans in India, the world’s most populous country, are expected to miss out on watching the biggest game.
With three weeks to go before the tournament kicks off in Mexico, FIFA organizers have yet to find a buyer to air their much-loved commercial in India.
Here’s what we know about the World Cup rights crisis in South Asia:
How many people watch FIFA World Cup in India?
When the World Cup was played in Qatar almost four years ago, India trailed only China in total viewing figures, with more than 745 million fans following the action across all platforms in the country, according to figures released by FIFA.
In terms of television viewership, India was among the top 10 countries – ahead of World Cup participants Germany, France and England – with an average of 84 million viewers.
Television viewing figures were also very important in India. In the final alone, an unprecedented 32 million viewers tuned in on Reliance’s JioCinema – the most on-demand ad service – as the race clocked up 40 billion minutes of viewing on the platform.
Reliance’s Jio paid $60m for sports rights in 2022, while Sony Sports acquired the rights to broadcast the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups, as well as the Euro 2016 tournament, for about $90m in 2013.
So when FIFA began selling media rights for the 2026 and 2027 Women’s Cup, it expected many takers for an estimated $100m.
But with just 23 days to go before the tournament and its lowest price yet, FIFA is still struggling to find buyers in a major market.
Why are there no buyers for World Cup 2026 in India?
Experts say that the starting times of many sports are very difficult for Indian broadcasters.
With the tournament being held in the United States, Canada and Mexico, many matches will be played at odd times for the Indian audience, with a time difference of 10-12 hours between the host cities and the South Asian nation.
Only 14 of the 104 World Cup matches will start at midnight for Indian fans.
The final will be held in New Jersey on July 19, starting at 12:30am India time (19:00 GMT). By comparison, 98.4 percent of matches at the 2018 World Cup started at midnight, with 82.5 percent at the next edition in Qatar.
Karan Taurani, senior vice president at investment firm Elara Capital, sees TV as a “difficult” medium in India.
“When you have this kind of game, it’s mostly digital that makes money and raises a lot of money,” Taurani told Al Jazeera. “This is the main reason why no one is showing interest in the FIFA World Cup.”
Taurani explained that cricket leads the financial market in India.
“Only a few of the people who watch the Indian Premier League (IPL) will watch the FIFA World Cup,” he said, adding that the music was too small in the middle of the night to watch the game.
For advertisers and advertisers, Taurani explained, this narrows the audience.
He also said that the recent ban by the Indian government on the use of real-time fantasy betting has reduced huge amounts of money in the sports market.
The World Cup starts 10 days after the final of cricket IPL 2026, which is one of the most watched sports in India and where the oldest advertisers focus their annual budget.
The value of football in India has been steadily declining. English Premier League rights, which were sold for $145m over three seasons between 2013 and 2016, went for $65m over 2025-28. There are no participants in La Liga matches in India.
FIFA appears to be concerned that weak media interest in India could undermine both revenue and its long-term ambition to grow football in one of the world’s biggest media markets.
In the capital New Delhi, the high court is hearing a plea that there is no competition and has sought answers from India’s information and broadcasting ministry and Doordarshan, India’s state broadcaster.
“Without the timely intervention of this court, the petitioner and millions of Indian citizens will be deprived of their fundamental rights without adequate alternative,” said the petitioner, a lawyer and football fan.
He says skipping the race violates free speech protections.
“It is important to note that by denying the requested information or without taking any action to publish the FIFA World Cup, those in question have directly violated the applicant’s right to access and receive information, which is an essential part of the right to freedom of speech and expression in accordance with the law,” the applicant argued.
With the Chinese broadcaster signing a World Cup deal late last week with FIFA, there is still hope and time for football fans in India. However, if no agreement is signed, all eyes will turn to Doordarshan, which last aired the competition in 1998.
The lingering doubt is leaving the excitement of the soccer World Cup. “I’m disappointed that we won’t have a reliable way to watch the World Cup this year,” said Banerjee, a Messi fan from Kolkata.
“But we’ll just play loud music,” he added. No one can stop that.
