New Delhi, India — When Argentina’s Gonzalo Montiel converted a penalty to seal his country’s third FIFA World Cup title in December 2022 in Qatar, Lionel Messi fan Vishwas Banerjee celebrated the Albiceleste’s triumph with abandon in Bangalore, a football-crazy city in southeastern India.Unable to hold back his excitement, Banerjee screamed and tossed his shirt away as he watched the match on a big screen at a street crossing close to midnight.“It was one of the best nights, watching Messi lift the World Cup,” he told Al Jazeera.“Everyone went crazy. We danced on the streets,” Banerjee said, reminiscing about the excitement felt more than 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) away in an otherwise cricket-mad country.While Messi is expected to make his World Cup swan song at the upcoming tournament in North America, football fans in India, the world’s most populous nation, are set to miss out on watching the biggest sporting event.With just over three weeks to the tournament’s kickoff in Mexico, organisers FIFA have not found any buyers for broadcasting its most coveted product in India.Here’s what we know about the World Cup broadcast rights crisis in the South Asian nation:How many people watch the FIFA World Cup in India?When the World Cup was played in Qatar nearly four years ago, India trailed only China in overall engagement figures, w …
