FIFA president Gianni Infantino has set a deadline of September 19 for the 211 member federations to accept a one-off offer of $20 million as part of a project to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.
The $20 billion FIFA subsidiary financed by Jared Kushner’s brother has been denounced by the international soccer body. European football’s governing body, UEFA, aims to convene its 55 member federations into an emergency online meeting, possibly on Thursday.
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The effort is also Infantino’s latest effort to align himself with those in President Donald Trump’s orbit. He created the FIFA Peace Prize, got President Trump to intervene in the process that led to U.S. forward Folarin Balogun playing in the World Cup, and is now trying to lock Joshua Kushner’s investment firm into a 12-year ownership deal with a Swiss-based nonprofit soccer organization.
Infantino cited a “unique and unique financing opportunity” in a letter Wednesday detailing why he wants to create a $20 billion FIFA subsidiary (20% owned by private investors) that will run the soccer association’s competitions and events such as the World Cup and Club World Cup.
“As president of FIFA, it is my duty and responsibility to provide our members with this opportunity to change the game,” Infantino said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
The proposal, revealed on Tuesday and backed by Joshua Kushner’s investment firm Thrive Capital, was immediately slammed by Infantino’s former colleague at UEFA, who insisted the World Cup was “not something FIFA sells”.
One option left for European soccer is to threaten to boycott the FIFA tournament. It’s a tactic used in 2021 when UEFA-led opposition helped thwart Infantino’s plan to play the World Cup every two years instead of four.
FIFA’s private equity plan is the latest ambitious project proposed during Mr Infantino’s 11-year tenure as president, during which time he increasingly looked like an executive who acted without consulting football’s key stakeholders.
Previous plans include creating the FIFA Peace Prize (awarded to Trump in December’s World Cup draw) and seeking to advance a secret $25 billion private equity plan to create a new, larger men’s competition in 2018. UEFA resisted the idea.
Concerns about the latest and previously secret plans were aired on Wednesday by the continental soccer body for Asia and North America, known as CONCACAF.
CONCACAF said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned by the lack of due process.”
The Kuala Lumpur-based Asian Football Confederation said it was “unfortunate that such an important issue entered the public arena before the AFC family was given the opportunity to consider and discuss it.”
Continental bodies that host their own international club and national team competitions, such as the Champions League, European Championship and Copa America, will see a threat to these competitions from FIFA, which seeks to increase revenue and value for investors by adding more teams and hosting men’s and women’s World Cups and Club World Cups more frequently.
The influential European football club group, which has 850 members and is in a joint venture with UEFA to manage the Champions League, said in a statement: “Like most of the world’s football community, we learned about the proposal without warning through the media.”
Sports governance scholar Antoine Duval suggested on Wednesday that it could “encourage FIFA to further commercialize the World Cup (considering more hydration breaks and dynamic pricing) in an effort to increase revenue.”
If the FIFA Forward Enterprise subsidiary is approved by a majority of its 211 members, it will commit $20 million in funding to each member from a four-year commercial cycle related to the 2030 Men’s World Cup.
That would give Joshua Kushner’s Thrive a “diverse pool of international investors” as anchor investors in a “JPMorgan-led” process, Infantino wrote.
If Infantino’s plan is rejected, those members would receive the previously promised $10 million over the next four years, his letter said.
The difference in cash provided to FIFA members on Wednesday appears to be $86 million over 12 years, compared to about $36 million in existing funding pledged to veto the private equity deal.
Dozens of these member federations typically rely on FIFA for funding, their national teams have little realistic chance of qualifying for the World Cup, and their best players rarely, if ever, join clubs that play at the highest level of international competition.
FIFA’s one-member, one-vote democratic system means that the most successful soccer nation on the field can easily be voted out by a nation that rarely plays top-level games.
FIFA’s plans met with immediate opposition from British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who is preparing to back the UK government’s bid to host the 2035 Women’s World Cup in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. FIFA is expected to approve the sole bid for 2035 at an online meeting in November.
“Football doesn’t belong to investors,” Burnham, a longtime soccer fan, said in a video message on Instagram. “Once[the World Cup]is sold, it’s sold out. Football belongs to the fans. It always has been and always will be.”
Resistance from British MPs – including then Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s threat of a 2021 bill – previously helped thwart plans for a divisive European Super League, which posed an existential threat to the UEFA Champions League and was cautiously supported by Mr Infantino.
Infantino appears on course to be re-elected unopposed as FIFA president for a fourth and final term until 2031.
Promises to increase FIFA funding to member federations were a decisive part of FIFA’s first election day speech in February 2016 and its unopposed re-elections in 2019 and 2023.
Some observers have long suspected that Infantino wanted a long-term role running the sport. The roles of CEO and commissioner of FIFA subsidiary FFE would fit that requirement.
Mr. Infantino has sparked dissatisfaction with his leadership this week beyond normal circles in Europe, with about four months to go before the election campaign.
The deadline for candidate entries for elections scheduled for March 18 next year in Rabat, Morocco, a key ally of Mr Infantino in recent years and co-host of the 2030 World Cup, is November 18.
