United States | News & Politics

Even one-night concerts in places like Central Park have to pay rental fees of as much as $2m, Benepe says, and those events are free to the public. The World Cup would be a perversion of that: a major sporting event taking over a public park for free, to charge people hundreds of dollars a ticket. “That would never have been allowed before,” he says.

The other red flag is that while the ICC has verbally pledged to repair the park afterward, it hasn’t offered to put up a restoration bond – typically a few million dollars – to ensure that it follows through. If the Dubai-based organization were to abscond after the Cup, “there could be no way to go after them legally to get the money back”, says the former official.

Taking away the place where locals play, in order to charge them to watch a tournament for a promise the fields will be upgraded later. A promise they won't guarantee.