In a development that has shocked even seasoned football observers, FIFA has announced that the 2038 World Cup will be held in Hell, the fiery abode of the eternally damned. ‘We believe that a World Cup in Hell will offer a uniquely immersive fan experience,’ read a FIFA statement posted on its website in the dead of night. ‘There will never be a hotter ticket,’ the statement claimed.
The move reportedly comes in the wake of extensive secret discussions between FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Satan, the president of Hell. ‘They really hit it off,’ noted a FIFA source with knowledge of the conversations. ‘I mean, of course this is a business arrangement, but they just enjoy each other’s company.’ The source noted that Infantino had given Satan a pair of his trademark white sneakers, while Satan had given Infantino a seven-foot-long flaming trident. While details of the FIFA-Hell arrangement have not been made public, the source said that it includes a payment to FIFA ‘for youth football development’ so large that it must be written ‘in scientific notation.’
President Satan warmly welcomed the FIFA announcement. ‘Hell has come a long way since the fire and brimstone days,’ Satan said in an exclusive interview with Piers Morgan. ‘With our hundreds of new unsanitary restaurants offering rotten meals, extremely expensive watery beer, and methanol-laced mixed drinks, we think the world’s football fans will see Hell in whole new light.’
Satan admitted that Hell currently had no football stadiums, but assured Morgan that he will have ‘666 of them’ ready by 2038. ‘We have perhaps the most compliant workers on Earth or anywhere else,’ Satan observed. ‘And compared to the perpetual torments they face on a daily basis, falling off a scaffolding or losing a limb in some piece of exceedingly dangerous machinery won't faze them,’ he added, noting that a FIFA representative called the workforce chapter of Hell’s World Cup bid ‘especially encouraging.’
Satan dismissed concerns over player welfare in Hell’s searing heat as ‘woke whining.’ ‘Thanks to my extensive strategic investments in fossil fuels,’ Satan said, ‘the Earth’s average surface temperature is getting closer to Hell’s all the time, so players should have no difficulty adjusting.’ FIFPRO, the international football players’ association, is demanding at least one water break per half, a demand FIFA has been reluctant to embrace, according to the FIFA source, because of broadcasters’ pace-of-play concerns. The general absence of potable water in Hell may also frustrate FIFPRO's demand.
Human rights activists were aghast at FIFA’s decision. When reached for comment, a representative of Amnesty International sobbed uncontrollably. President Satan called the activists’ criticisms ‘misinformed.’ Hell's human rights record is unmatched,' Satan said. ‘For example, we reject all types of discrimination: every soul in Hell is subject to exactly the same fiendish tortures and eternal miseries,’ Satan said. ‘And we must be doing something right because people are literally dying to get in.’