FIFA abandons World Cup private sell-off after global backlash

FIFA president Gianni Infantino abandoned his proposal to sell a minority stake in the World Cup to private investors on Friday, just four days after announcing it. The plan — which would have created a new $20 billion commercial subsidiary to run the World Cup and other major FIFA tournaments — collapsed under the weight of a European boycott threat, opposition from multiple continental confederations, and an extraordinary public revolt by two of his own senior officials.

What the plan involved

Announced on Tuesday, the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) project was designed to spin off FIFA's commercial operations — covering broadcast rights, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing for events including the men's and women's World Cups and the Club World Cup — into a separate entity. FIFA's plan was to raise up to $4.2 billion by selling a 20% stake in that entity, which the governing body valued at $20 billion, according to Al Jazeera and ESPN.

The proposed anchor investor was Joshua Kushner, founder of New York-based venture capital firm Thrive Capital, who would have led the investment via a fund called Thrive Eternal. Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump — a connection that drew immediate suspicion from critics already uneasy about Infantino's close relationship with the Trump administration during the 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Infantino defended the scheme as a vehicle for redistributing new investment to smaller member associations, particularly in regions where football development funding is most scarce. FIFA also argued that outside investors would hold no operational role in tournaments and would invest only in the subsidiary, not in FIFA's governance structures directly. Few found that reassurance persuasive.

A boycott, then an internal revolt

UEFA, European football's governing body representing 55 of FIFA's 211 member associations, called an emergency meeting and voted unanimously on Thursday to boycott FIFA competitions — including the World Cup — if the plan went ahead. UEFA said it was 'irresponsible and indefensible' that a proposal of such significance had been 'conceived in secret', and was blunt in its verdict: 'The World Cup is not FIFA's to sell.' CONCACAF, representing North and Central America and the Caribbean, rejected the plan and questioned the need for private equity in an organisation that had just completed the most profitable World Cup in history. The Asian Football Confederation stopped short of a boycott threat but stood, in its words, 'in solidarity with UEFA and CONCACAF' in expressing serious concerns.

“"I cannot stand by while FIFA considers selling a stake in the World Cup. It is a bad deal for FIFA's Member Associations, a bad deal for football, and a bad deal for the long-term future of the game." — Carlos Cordeiro, resigning as senior adviser to Gianni Infantino”

The decisive blow came from inside. On Friday, Cordeiro — a former Goldman Sachs banker who had served as a senior presidential adviser — resigned publicly, urging other senior FIFA staff to follow. Within hours, Kevin Lamour, FIFA's chief operating officer and a long-time colleague of Infantino at both FIFA and UEFA, released a statement to the Associated Press saying that staff had been deceived by Infantino's lack of transparency in planning the sale over recent months. Lamour called it 'the project of one person', and said it must not continue.

What happens now

“"Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place." — Gianni Infantino, FIFA President”

The episode is a significant blow to Infantino's authority, arriving weeks after the conclusion of a World Cup that had, by most commercial measures, been a triumph. Infantino had been expected to stand unopposed for re-election to a final term through 2031. That now looks less certain. Al Jazeera reports that even the Asian Football Confederation, a longstanding Infantino ally across his 11-year presidency, used its statement of opposition to call on FIFA to urgently review its management style. CNN notes that Infantino has said his immediate goal is to reunite the football world following what he acknowledged is a debacle — though the damage to trust between FIFA's executive leadership and its member confederations will not be easily repaired.

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