The 2026 FIFA World Cup opens June 11 with eight matches set for Los Angeles. Steven A. Bank, Paul Hastings Professor of Business Law at UCLA School of Law, will be watching the legal and business storylines as closely as the soccer.

• Bank is a lifelong fan and a longtime scholar of the sport. An authority in tax law and corporate governance, he has tracked how those fields increasingly intersect with soccer as the game has grown into a global business. Among the issues he is following:
• Attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have subpoenaed FIFA over ticket pricing and deceptive practices related to seat location.
• Legal questions surround immigration enforcement at stadiums, potentially leading to protests and expanded federal presence.
• Host cities are pressing FIFA and federal authorities over security and transportation costs, including delays in federal subsidies.
• Visa issues threaten the participation of some teams, staff members, and fans. Limits on speech, such as FIFA’s ban in stadiums on Iran's pre-revolution, may be challenged in court.
• FIFA’s leveraging of the secondary ticket market, which does not exist in many other countries, has contributed to high prices and angry reactions from fans who see soccer as a game for the people.

In a newly published Q&A, he discusses the challenges facing this tournament and the wider world of soccer, and also offers a prediction on who will lift the trophy.

"FIFA is 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."
— Steven Bank

About Steven Bank

Professor Bank is an authority in business taxation, tax policy, and tax history. He has authored or co-authored several books, including Anglo-American Corporate Taxation (Cambridge University Press, 2011), From Sword to Shield: The Transformation of the Corporate Income Tax, 1861 to Present (Oxford University Press, 2010), War and Taxes (Urban Institute Press, 2008), Taxation of Business Enterprises (Thomson/West, 2012), and Business Tax Stories (Foundation Press, 2005).

He is a frequent commentator on soccer law, applying his business and tax background as a legal affairs contributor across a range of publications and forums. He explores these questions in greater depth in his course on International and Comparative Sports Law and his Perspectives seminar, Law, Lawyering, and the Beautiful Game.

Professor Bank is available for interviews and may be contacted by writing bank@law.ucla.edu or media@law.ucla.edu.

Additional UCLA Law Experts

UCLA School of Law faculty are available to comment on a wide range of international and domestic legal issues shaping the current landscape, including international law and the law of armed conflict, presidential and executive power, foreign relations law, election regulation, constitutional law, and federal-state relations.

Media Contacts: media@law.ucla.edu

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