The World Cup final between France and Croatia will be an all-European affair, but it will kick off at a decidedly non-European time.
Fans in Paris and Zagreb, long-accustomed to watching the world’s biggest soccer matches in prime time, will instead have to flip on their televisions for a 5 p.m. start. The match begins at 6 p.m. in Moscow and 11 a.m. on the East Coast of the United States because, after decades of prioritizing Western Europe, FIFA’s compass has begun to shift east in recent years.
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