Port Vale will be paid a six figure sum by football’s governing body thanks to Ben Waine’s participation in the 2026 World Cup finals.
FIFA hands out a “Clubs Benefit” payment as a ‘thank you’ to clubs for contributing players to the World Cup. The payment is made after the tournament ends in mid-July.
What is the FIFA Clubs Benefit payment?
FIFA describes it as “The FIFA World Cup needs more than the willing participation of players and national football associations and the enthusiasm of the fans who follow every edition. The success of every tournament also relies on the active collaboration and support of clubs from across the global football ecosystem. The FIFA Club Benefits Programme was created to share tournament revenues with clubs in return for their release of their players to participate in the FIFA World Cup. As the FIFA World Cup continues to grow in popularity and scale, the programme will channel the benefits of this success throughout the professional football world…”
Discussing the payment, FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced last year: “The enhanced edition of the FIFA Club Benefits Programme for the FIFA World Cup 2026 is going a step further by recognising financially the huge contribution that so many clubs and their players around the world make to the staging of both the qualifiers and the final tournament.”
Clubs are paid for every day that a player is involved in the tournament which means the Valiants will earn money from the time Waine was released for International duty lasting as long as his side New Zealand remain in the competition.
The exact amount to be paid out for this tournament is not known but it was £8,131 per day, per player for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
On that calculation, Port Vale could earn somewhere in the region of £175,000 to £200,000 for Waine’s participation, presuming New Zealand do not progress out of the group stages. Should the All Whites progress any further then obviously the amount will be even more.
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