FIFA Spent $19 million on a Movie About the History of FIFA
Soccer's governing body has a bit of an image problem, with constant accusations of bribery resulting from poor decisions like putting the World Cup in the middle of the Qatari desert in the summertime, so they decided to give themselves a makeover with a new movie about FIFA's history called United Passions.
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The film stars Tim Roth as current FIFA head Sepp Blatter and Sam Neill as his predecessor Joao Havelange, and, based on the trailer, paints about as rosy a view of the federation as you would expect after they provided roughly $19 million of the reported $27 million it cost to make the film.
The film premiered at Cannes recently and The Guardian reports that Blatter himself provided some script revisions, in case you were afraid the move would not be impartial.
According to The Daily Mail, the film received a "lukewarm" reaction at the festival.
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