Dynamic ticket prices, hydration brakes and general corporate greed - there are plenty of reasons to dislike FIFA and believe they have made the World Cup worse.
But there is one thing football’s governing body has got right and that is the FIFA Museum which is packed full with memorabilia and football history dating right back to the first World Cup in 1930.
For this World Cup the ‘Legacies of Champions’ is a free interactive exhibition located in the heart of midtown Manhattan at the iconic Rockefeller Center.
I queued up to go to the exhibition outside the famous New York landmark and given the price of everything else at this World Cup and in America in general, this felt like something worthy of an admission fee.
There is a section dedicated to each of the 22 previous World Cups with their own piece of memorabilia from the time - shirts, caps, posters, balls and even turf from the 2018 final - all which make the exhibition a must visit for all football fans who are visiting New York during the tournament.
The first World Cup I remember watching as a six-year-old was Italia 90 and seeing Bobby Robson’s England reach the semi-final before eventually losing on penalties to West Germany.
One of the most memorable images from that semi final was Paul Gascoigne in tears after picking up his second booking of the tournament which would have ruled him out of the final had England made it.
Gazza cried, I cried, the nation cried. So when walking round the Museum on the 9th floor of the Rockefeller Center all those memories of that summer came flooding back when I reached the 1990 section and I saw the actual yellow card shown by Brazilian referee Jose Ramiz Wright to Gascoigne.
A simple yellow card, no bigger than 4 inches by 3 inches with the hand written words ‘19 Gascoigne’ on it. It is not something I ever felt I would see in my life nor was it something that I felt I needed to see.
But the fact that I did see it transported me back 36 years and the memories of that tournament.
And as impressive as it was seeing Ivor Allchurch Wales shirt from the 1958 World Cup or the tracksuit top that Pele warmed up in at the 1962 tournament or even Zinedine Zidane’s accreditation pass from France 98 or Lionel Messi’s match worn shirt from the final in Doha four years ago, it was a small bit of card that evoked the World Cup memories for me.
Everyone will have their own memorable moment from tournaments past and there will be pieces of memorabilia at this excellent exhibition that bring back memories to fans young and old.
Half way round the exhibition there is a replica of the Jules Rimet trophy with the original base, but once you have seen all the sections for the 22 tournaments past, you can then see the current trophy and have a picture taken with it - well, within reason it is 5kg of 18 karat gold and worth around $713,000, so understandably it is kept in a heavily guarded case, but you can still see it in all its glory.
The FIFA Museum presented by Hyundai: ‘Legacies of Champions’ is free of charge and open to the public at Rockefeller Center until July 19, 2026.
