Overview
- A 2018 TeleSur interview in which Diego Maradona said the United States would turn matches into “four periods” for advertising has resurfaced on social media and gone viral, prompting renewed attention to the 2026 World Cup format.
- FIFA’s hydration breaks at the 2026 tournament impose roughly three-minute pauses at set fractions of play that are later recovered, a change that effectively splits each half into two shorter segments and creates four discrete stoppages per match.
- Critics and some journalists say the pause length and timing create natural windows for commercials on stadium screens and television, an argument that echoes Maradona’s original complaint about U.S. commercialization.
- FIFA defends the measure as a player-welfare step to allow rehydration and equal conditions across venues, but coaches and players have expressed frustration about disrupted flow and longer added time.
- Reporters link the current debate to a longer history of concern about commercial influence in U.S.-hosted tournaments, noting Maradona also described a similar idea around USA ’94 and that North America’s large broadcast markets increase scrutiny of rule changes.