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Just looking at the dates for internationals, it appears we'll have four friendly slots before the World Cup: two in March; two in June before the competition starts. Certainly the March matches could give an opportunity for a couple of the fringe players to get an opportunity, whereas the June slot will be similar to the friendlies we've had before the recent Euros. The sides we play in these friendly matches will come down to who we get in the draw (most likely).

For those wanting guaranteed tickets now and who were not aware, FIFA had a Right to Buy scheme (RTB) via FIFA Collect, whereby fans could pay to guarantee a ticket for certain matchdays. Fans who paid for these RTB, recently paid for the conversion to Right to Tickets (RTT), so effectively paying the full ticket price for the seating category of their choice, CAT 1 being the highest offering. These RTT are available to buy now on the FIFA Collect Marketplace. This is a guarantee of a ticket and once purchased, there is no additional cost (since the ticket price is already paid for during conversion from RTB to RTT) and FIFA will convert these RTT into actual tickets in May/Jun next year. Whilst the actual seat choice can only be made when FIFA release these in May/Jun next year, the CAT of seat is guaranteed. You can either chose to pay the asking price set by the seller, or make a bid which they can chose to accept or not. For example CAT 1 tickets for Haiti v Scotland in Matchday 5 in Boston range from $675 - $2,500 per ticket. No doubt these will increase in price as the event gets closer. Take a look here for those on sale now.. https://collect.fifa.com/marketplace Full disclosure - i took a punt on tickets before the draw and ended up with 2 tickets for HAI v SCO, so selling mine via this official FIFA channel.

We'll be in Pot 3 for the draw: https://x.com/fmeetsdata/status/1990904467881873909 Takes place on Friday 5th December.

I've seen it reported the prize money for the World Cup will be broken down as follows (based on when a team is eliminated): Group stage - $9m Round of 32 - $13m Round of 16 - $15m Quarter-final - $17m Fourth - $30m Third - $32m Runner-up - $35m Winner - $50m So about £6.8m guaranteed for us. Luckily for the SFA, it doesn't seem to be a game changing amount of money. They had turnover of £57.1m in 2023 and £78.7m in 2024 (the latter would've included Euro 2024 related income). For context, we got €9.75m (or about £8.6m) from Euro 2024. The prize fund is being divided between half the amount of teams though. The total pot was €331m (£290m) compared to $652m (£493.5m) for the World Cup. Expected to be officially announced on the 5th, the same day as the draw.