Critics called “WMA” the season’s “most quietly devastating episode” ( Variety ), noting how it “replaces the adrenaline of the first four episodes with the slow dread of institutional inevitability” ( The Playlist ). Some viewers found the lack of on-field action jarring, but the episode’s final shot—Jadue alone in a Miami hotel room, watching a youth team play on a cracked television—drives home the tragedy: the game still exists, but the men who run it no longer see it.
★★★★☆ (4/5) Memorable Quote: “You think FIFA is the problem? FIFA is the jersey. WMA is the body wearing it.” – Sergio Jadue (voiceover)
El Presidente S01E05, “WMA,” is not an episode about a goal or a trophy. It is about the spreadsheet behind the trophy. By centering on a fictional-but-all-too-real organization, the show crystallizes its core thesis: in global football, the most dangerous player is not on the pitch—it’s the one with the Wi-Fi password and a shell company in the Caymans.
Episode Summary In the fifth episode of Amazon Prime’s gripping football corruption drama El Presidente , titled “WMA,” the intricate web of fraud, bribery, and influence surrounding the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal tightens around its central players. The episode shifts focus from the chaotic electioneering of previous episodes to the quiet, calculating machinery of international football governance. “WMA” exposes the shadowy organization that has been pulling the strings all along—a private entity masquerading as a legitimate football authority, where votes are commodities and national federations are mere subsidiaries.