More than half of the world's population has watched the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which was held in 11 cities located across Russia this summer, FIFA said in a press release on Friday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st December, 2018) More than half of the world's population has watched the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which was held in 11 cities located across Russia this summer, FIFA said in a press release on Friday.
"A combined 3.572 billion viewers - more than half of the global population aged four and over - tuned in to world football's ultimate competition, according to audience data for official broadcast coverage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup," the release read.
FIFA specified that the matches of the "record-breaking" tournament, which was held from June 14 to July 15, had been broadcast live "in every territory around the world."
"The final between France and Croatia on 15 July attracted a combined global audience of 1.12 billion ... Over the 64 matches, the average live audience was 191 million: each game was a global televisual event in its own right," FIFA added.
Philippe Le Floc'h, FIFA chief commercial officer, expressed his belief that these figures proved that the event, which Russia hosted for the first time in its history, was "the best World Cup ever."
"The fact that half the world's population watched the FIFA World Cup reflects not just the high quality of our award-winning live coverage, but also that fans everywhere are insatiable for world-class football," he said, as quoted in the press release.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin named the World Cup one of the two main events of 2018, with another one being the presidential election.
