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Comment by amazingamazing | Hacker News Reader

Why is the world cup so infrequent anyway? I assume to match olympics?

Good models need a lot of data. Can you really be accurate with what, 30 data points, in which the team composition is basically reset each time?

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World Cups have to alternate with continental competitions (Copa America, Asian Cup, European Cup, Africa Cup of Nations) which are on similar cycles. They could technically be held every two years (and current FIFA leadership is pushing towards that), but federations and clubs are resistant (because every summer tournament places even more stress on an already-long club season, and it would likely devalue other competitions).

Every 4 years is good. Makes it a special event

Clubs want their star players focused on club championships, and the star players make their real money playing on their club teams.

do world cup athletes get a big bonus for world cup participation from their govts and/or FIFA?

It is up to their respective Football Federation (Spain: RFEF, England: FA, Germany: DFB, etc.), but FIFA pays each Federation a bonus: https://intereconomia.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/image-2...

In the average country players agree the bonus conditions with their Federation.

FIFA pays federations on a result basis. It's then up to the individual federations to redistribute that money as you see fit. As you can imagine, a lot of that does not end up in the athletes' pockets... I believe clubs get some (low) compensation for injuries, but it's also common knowledge that players who play deep into summer will end up performing poorly the following season.

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