Good Morning ☀️,

It’s Lucas here, your Chief Predictions Officer at What Are the Odds?

Yesterday, we landed on what would have to be some of the laziest reporting we’ve seen so far this Word Cup — reporting that attempts to manufacture a scandal around the French team. But we’ll get to setting the record straight in a moment.

First, here’s what’s coming up.

What’s ahead in today’s edition of What Are the Odds?:

• The laziest World Cup reporting we’ve seen so far. 🙄

• Today’s match schedule. 🗓️

• Our Norway vs England prediction. ✅

Sharing is caring: Help grow the team and show your friends you care — send them this link https://whataretheodds.io/subscribe

Today, we’ve got 1 match coming up.

🇪🇸 Spain vs Belgium 🇧🇪

Friday 10 July; 21:00 (Europe/Paris)

Want to get the best odds on this match?

There’s been a lot of lazy reporting at this year’s World Cup. Heck, we’re probably guilty of contributing to the problem ourselves, even if some of our laziest reporting was intentionally lazy and was actually intended as something of a trojan horse.

Still, if there’s one inalienable human right that’s more inalienable than all the others, it’d have to be the right to be a pot calling the kettle black.

So with that disclosure and disclaimer out of the way, let’s pick up on one of the laziest stories we’ve seen so far this World Cup — this Guardian feature about France’s national team using “ICE deportation planes” for World Cup travel.

Now, don’t get us wrong here — the basic facts are true. France did, in fact, travel in planes that do double duty as “ICE deportation planes”. (Also, side note — the Guardian does at least note (albeit in the last paragraph) that other national teams have also chartered “ICE deportation planes”, including England and Iran. So this isn’t really just a France story, even if the headline and 90% of the article focuses on that.)

But here’s the lazy bit. The Guardian uses a not-so-subtle slight of hand to basically paint the whole thing as one giant hypocrisy. Presumably to generate some sort of “WTF, but how could France do that!?” moment. (Note to the Guardian — if you’re reading this and that wasn’t your intention, then we’d love to hear from you.)

What makes it lazy is that, instead of actually trying to answer the question — why did France use so-called “Ice deporation planes” — the Guardian simply leaves it at this:

“GlobalX has not responded to requests for comment. Representatives for the French national team did not respond to multiple requests for comment.”

But we reckon we can come up with at least one plausible explanation. So here goes.

Let’s Start With the Logistics

When a World Cup team has to travel around, it’s not exactly like planning your family holiday (well, that is, unless you’re part of the Quiverfull movement… in which case… good on ya). The fact is, the full delegation is roughly 26 players plus coaching, plus medical plus administrative staff plus a whole bunch of kit. And that means Business jets are too small, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that not one of the 48 teams flew to North America on one.

Scheduled commercial service doesn’t really work either. Between departure times, seat availability, security concerns, arrivals at secondary airports, the needed ramp-side access, etc., flying commercial ranges from “biggest headache of your life” through to “simply impossible”.

And that means only one real option remains — an on demand Part 121 narrowbody charter flight, typically on an A320 or 737 family aircraft, that just so happens to have crew and an available plane at the time and place you want it. And yeah, that’s exactly what “ICE deportation flights” use.

And that’s not the only complication here.

When France first arrived in the United States, it did so on an flight operated by French carrier La Compagnie. However, while Cabotage rules allow a foreign-registered aircraft to land in a country, that doesn’t mean it can then start running domestic flights once there.

So that means every team that flew in on a flag carrier — Qantas, KLM, ANA, Iberia, Aerolíneas Argentinas, La Compagnie — was then required by law to hire an American operator the moment it needed to move between host cities.

So now the question is, which American operators?

The US Lost its Largest Player in 2024

For over a decade the biggest passenger charter airline in the United States was Swift Air, later iAero Airways. Its customers included twelve NHL teams plus an assortment of other professional and college sports teams nationwide, although its single largest customer was the Department of Homeland Security (FreightWaves), for which it flew nearly sixty ICE deportation flights a month at its peak.

This is what the whole hypocrisy frame the Guardian tries to throw around the story forgets to mention. Sports charter and deportation charter were never really two markets — they’re very much one and the same, with the same airframes, run by the same company. The VIP-configured 737-400s iAero fitted for NBA and NHL teams were sister ships to the ones flying removals to Guatemala.

In April 2024, iAero ceased operations and liquidated. Its fleet then went to Eastern Air Express. FreightWaves noted at the time that its demise potentially removed a large chunk of capacity from the charter market, opening the door for rivals such as Global Crossing Airlines/GlobalX (a name you might recognize if you read the Guardian article).

And that’s precisely what happened. The ICE contracts went to GlobalX and Eastern. So did the sports charters.

So now the question is, who’s left?

So Who’s Actually Left?

To the best of our knowledge, this is what the current U.S. Part 121 narrowbody charter flight market looks like right now.

So, assuming we did an alright job at putting that table together, where does that actually leave us?

Well, the only obvious clean answer if a team wants to avoid chartering so-called “ICE deportation planes” is to fly Sun Country. And hey, Sun Country’s also MLS's official carrier, which kinda makes it an obvious choice.

But there’s a complication here, too. Sun Country is also a scheduled leisure carrier with charter making up roughly 20% of it revenues, and a scheduled demand peak in July. In other words, its adhoc charter capacity bottoms out exactly the moment the World Cup needs.

And this isn’t us making stuff up, either. The industry itself has explicitly called out the charter flight shortage. To quote one a charter brokerage’s own 2026 World Cup client guide:

“There is a genuine shortage of 121 charter aircraft entering 2026... For the NCAA tournament earlier this year, messaging went out to teams that there simply were not enough aircraft available for all the groups trying to move. The World Cup will stress this market further.”

tl;dr — the U.S. isn’t exactly awash in spare Part 121 narrowbody charter flight capacity.

What Does this Mean?

This World Cup threw forty-eight teams into a tournament spanning sixteen host cities and three countries where each team flies round-trip charters to multiple matches all at the same time.

Now throw that on top of a market with an already limited Part 121 narrowbody charter fleet, which is even more severely limited once you cross off “ICE deportation plane” operators and ask what do we get?

That’s right — the balance of probabilities tends to suggest that, at some point in time, at least a few teams were going to have to take “ICE deportation planes” at one point or another if they wanted to travel. And that’s probably the exact situation France, England, Iran, and any other teams that may or may not be “caught” taking “ICE deportation planes” finds itself in.

So, to the editors at the Guardian, maybe next time it might be worth taking a moment to try and figure out why these teams are taking these flights before hyperventilating over the seeming hypocrisy.

⚽ Norway vs England
🏟️ 2026 FIFA World Cup
📅 Saturday 11 July; 23:00 (Europe/Paris)

• Why we’re watching: It’s the World Cup Quarterfinals. Duh!

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Norway is currently #19 in the FIFA World rankings, and has 4W/0D/1L, 12 goals scored, and 9 conceded after 5 World Cup games.

  • England is currently #4 in the FIFA World rankings, and has 4W/1D/0L, 11 goals scored, and 5 conceded after 5 World Cup games.

  • England won the two previous head-to-head clashes between these two 1-0, although the last meeting was back in 2014.

• CXSports says: It’s easy to discount Norway’s path to the quarterfinals as a bit of good luck — luck that could run out. But there is a real case here — Erling Haaland’s seven goals and joint-top of the Golden Boot chart against a back four being assembled on the fly. To put some context on that, Jarell Quansah copped a red card against Mexico, which means Tuchel must now reshuffle, likely dropping a fit-again Reece James into a defence that has now conceded in each of its last three matches and let five slip through across the tournament. And that might be a fragile foundation on which to face a striker who just blasted two past Brazil.
  
  With that said, every one of Norway’s matches this tournament have cleared the 2.5 goals mark. And not all of those goals were Norways — they’ve also conceded 9 at a rate of 1.8 per game. And those are the sort of numbers that make Norway beatable, particularly against an English side that’s conceding at a rate of just 1.
  
  And it’s not like England’s hungry for goals either — they’re just one shy of Norway’s tally, thanks n large part to Harry Kane's six goals from an xG of 4.19 and 10 shots on target. That tells he’s currently converting at a rate well above what his chances deserve. And it’s the exact flavor of ruthlessness that can punish a Norwegian defence that hasn’t managed to keep anyone out so far.
  
  England’s also demonstrated something in the last sixteen that Norway have never had to demonstrate — they held on for a 3-2 win over co-hosts Mexico, in a hostile Mexico City, with ten men for most of the second half. That’s the sort of tournament experience/character that actually wins tough quarter-finals.
  
  So that means we have to ask ourselves — do we favor the vikings, whose only real route to a victory depends on Haaland winning the game on his own? Or, do we favor the team that’s not a one-man band with a bench deeper than anything Solbakken can call upon after the hour. Our bet is the latter.
  
  With that said, we fully expect goals at both ends; both sides score prolifically. And both have conceded in basically every match. But while Norway will probably manage to land a response (or two) against England, we ultimately don’t see them finishing this one with a pass to the semifinals.

• Score prediction: 3-2 for England

Bet Option #1

• Bet: England Victory

• Odds Range: 1.65-1.93

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.50-1.70

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow, we’ll be back with more coverage as the World Cup quarterfinals enter their last day of play.

Until then, enjoy the football and watch out for all the lazy reporting about it.