On Tuesday afternoon, several well-informed journalists revealed that FIFA would soon announce plans to sell shares in the World Cup. It didn’t take long - within two hours, FIFA issued an official statement confirming the intentions described in Martyn Ziegler’s explosive article for The Times.
What’s this about? Currently, the World Cup is organised solely by FIFA as an independent body governing global football. Under the new vision, FIFA would create a separate company to manage the tournament (FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE for short), and minority shares in it would be sold.
As Ziegler described in The Times, allowing private investors to buy rights in the world’s biggest sporting event would directly secure a fortune for Gianni Infantino. He would oversee the lucrative subsidiary and could earn tens of millions of dollars.
To 'sell' the project well to the media, FIFA’s statement emphasised - no less than seven times - that FIFA would retain full control over the tournament as the majority shareholder. And the minority shareholders? The main one would reportedly be Josh Kushner, the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
UEFA protest immediately
Assurances about 'control' do nothing to lessen the criticism directed at FIFA’s headquarters. UEFA responded briefly, firmly condemning the plans and calling for them to be abandoned.
"This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross. UEFA takes this extremely seriously. So does every national football federation. So does every stakeholder: leagues, clubs, players, fans, governments, and everyone who cares about the future of football.
"The soul and governance of football are not assets to be traded - especially when there is no transparency about who benefits financially. None of us owns football. FIFA should not be selling it."
Principles or millions: What will national federations choose?
However, UEFA’s protest is not a litmus test for the plan to further commercialise the World Cup. Infantino is promising national associations such large sums that, for some, it may be a convincing argument.
This year alone, the share sale plan is expected to bring in $4.2 billion in revenue, and FIFA estimates the total could reach $20 billion. This would allow FIFA to significantly increase funding for national associations.
So far, FIFA was obliged to give each of the 211 federations $8 million for the 2027-2030 period. Now, the promised amount rises to $20 million, then to $22 million for the next period (2031-2034), and later to $24 million for each national association. Especially for federations that are more financially dependent on FIFA, this is a huge difference.