tl;dr I want to make a wee bit of a binary opposition between FIFA and Eurovision.

Eurovision is, of course, a newswire. Launched on the back of Telstar, they have TV crews ready to broadcast in every country they cover and can, if needed, run several in *every* country they cover simultaneously. This is actually impressive and, at the time they were launched, it was an incredible wonder. So much so, that they launched a song contest to show off their practically unenviable abilities to not only broadcast from the contest to every country they cover, but to get live results from every one of those countries. The contest, with it's campy glamour, also gives them incredible soft power on news gathering. Everywhere they are, somebody will be impressed with them and more willing to talk to their journos. They also are international, so this is international scrutiny. Thus far, no country has ever been dropped form the contest as long as their journalists were operating in the country.

FIFA does football and gives awards to Donal Trump and pals around with the worst fucking people on earth, but they do this to enable people to kick a ball around in a stadium constructed by slave labour. Because sports are macho, this is hugely important to the countries that participate and thus their inclusion normalises international participation in fun, cultural events.