Business law professor. Taxation scholar. Legal historian. UCLA School of Law’s Steve Bank is a man with broad expertise and interests, to be sure. And when soccer stars and fans travel to Los Angeles and elsewhere in North America for the World Cup this summer, he will be right there in the stands. But for Bank, the Paul Hastings Professor of Business Law at UCLA Law, getting to see some historic matches in person won’t be all about cheering on the home team.

Renowned as an authority in tax law – his new book is High Rates and Low Taxes: Tax Dodging in Mid-Century America (Cambridge University Press, 2026) – Bank also ranks among the world’s leading experts in the law of soccer. Here, he talks about the issues that he sees around the beautiful game and the global event that is coming to L.A.

What are the big issues that are affecting this World Cup?

There are a number of legal issues looming over this World Cup. Attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have subpoenaed FIFA – the sport’s international governing body – over ticket pricing and deceptive practices related to seat location. Legal issues have arisen related to immigration enforcement at stadiums and resulting protests. These could include more federal military activity in host cities, in potential violations of previous court orders. Cities are confronting FIFA and federal authorities over security and transportation costs, including delays in federal subsidies. There are potential visa issues for teams and staff members, as well as their fans. And there are threatened lawsuits over FIFA’s ban on the pre-revolution Iran flag at games.

That’s a lot. Does the visa issue surprise you? Has that been a point of contention before, during other fraught geopolitical moments?

Typically, in the U.S. and elsewhere, the desire for tourism revenue associated with the World Cup is so great that countries go to great lengths to be as accommodating as possible to fans from other countries. In the current environment, especially with the situation in Iran, not to mention Venezuela, as well as in Israel/Gaza, the national security risks are heightened. The 1972 Olympics in Munich is one obvious parallel. It will require balancing enforcement with being gracious hosts and exercising a healthy respect for human rights.

Let’s turn to the expensive tickets. So many people in L.A. and elsewhere want to go to games and witness history, but we are finding ourselves priced out of tickets – by a long stretch. Is this new? How does this speak to the further erosion of the democracy of this sport?

Sports event organizers in the United States face the unique challenge of having a secondary market for tickets. That does not exist in many other parts of the world. Even before the World Cup, U.S. leagues and teams have tried to capture that market for themselves, including the dynamic pricing that comes with secondary market sales. In some respects, FIFA is just trying to use the state of the art in the U.S. for their ticket models, but they have done so in a way that violates many fans’ notion of soccer as a game for the people. It very much fits in with changes in the game on a broader scale, such as its transformation into a big business, its globalization through TV and streaming services, and the change in ownership and investment from people with less commitment to the local communities and their fans.

You are an authority in tax law, but you have become an authority in soccer law. Why?

There are actually a lot of connections between tax, corporate governance, and soccer law, partly because of the growth of soccer as a big business. David Beckham moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid in part because of a tax provision Spain had adopted in an attempt to lure CEOs to move there. FIFA’s direction over the last 50 years has been in large part driven by a corporate governance structure providing for per capita voting, which allows even the smallest member nations to have the same voting as the largest and most successful nations. This eventually has led African and Caribbean nations to operate as kingmakers. Major League Soccer’s single-entity limited liability company structure was a solution to both a legal problem in antitrust law and a business problem in cost containment. I was always interested in the sport of soccer from my playing days as a kid and from being a fan, but I began to see lots of connections and applications from my teaching and research, and I started to study these connections more formally.

How do the issues here, with the World Cup, relate to those that you explore in your new book on the history of tax dodging?

The first chapter in my book is about the golden age of tax dodging, when Hollywood stars, who were some of the highest-salaried earners in the country at the time, figured out how to convert their compensation from salary to lower-taxed capital gains payments or corporate income. They did so by realizing that their compensation was not simply for their time and talent but for their brand – what we know as name, image, and likeness today. The modern megastar in European football is a global brand as well, and they use many of the same tax advisers used by big entertainment stars and corporations. Some of the same tax-dodging schemes used by entertainers and corporations – such as profit-shifting to low- or no-tax jurisdictions – have become mainstays in football. In fact, some of the most famous tax-dodging cases in Europe in recent years have involved star football players and coaches who diverted part of their income to publicity rights owned by an entity located offshore in order to lower their overall tax burden. 

Which games are you attending?

First, my family and I got tickets to Switzerland vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina at SoFi Stadium. I don’t have a particular connection to either country, but it was the only game where we could get semi-reasonable tickets. Like a lot of fans, we are just trying to experience what quite likely could be a once in a lifetime chance to see a World Cup game in person. But then I managed to get into the USA vs. Türkiye game because FIFA released more tickets. This is part of their artificial scarcity program that they hoped would induce fans to buy the tickets at crazy, sky-high prices. I guess that fell short of their sales goals, so they released more tickets at still sky-high prices – but slightly less crazy!

So, who will win it all?

France is the odds-on favorite and the safe pick. On the other hand, only one European team has ever won a World Cup held in the Western Hemisphere, in part because the travel and time difference typically put them at a disadvantage. I don’t think those factors are as relevant today, and Germany won in Brazil in 2014, but to the extent they have any role at all, it could put a country like Brazil or Argentina over the top.