FIFA scraps controversial World Cup Investment Plan

ISLAMABAD (GNP): FIFA president Gianni Infantino has abandoned a proposal to sell minority stakes in the governing body’s major tournaments, including the men’s and women’s World Cups, after the plan drew opposition from several of football’s most powerful regional confederations. Infantino said it had become clear the project had created divisions that no longer served its original purpose, adding that the proposal would not go ahead.

The plan had offered all 211 FIFA member associations $40m each if they backed private investment in a new commercial subsidiary, FIFA Forward Enterprise, with a deadline of 19 September set for federations to sign on and access an initial $20m.

An investment bank presentation prepared for the proposal projected that Fifa’s tournaments could generate an increased payout of 24 million euros per member association in the 2035-2039 cycle, and described football’s showcase event as under-monetised relative to its viewership, though the document made no mention of the women’s game.

That plan began unravelling once Uefa’s 55 member associations voted to boycott future World Cups if the proposal proceeded, a stance Concacaf’s 41 associations echoed a day later.

The Asian Football Confederation subsequently voiced solidarity with both confederations, leaving Infantino facing opposition from federations representing well over half the votes he would have needed to secure majority backing among FIFA’s 211 members. FIFA had initially insisted on Friday that the plan would continue, but the mounting resistance made that position increasingly difficult to sustain.

The internal fallout proved just as damaging as the external opposition. FIFA’s chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, said the organization’s own administration had been misled about the project, while Carlos Cordeiro, Infantino’s senior adviser on global strategy and governance, resigned over the matter, describing the proposal as harmful to football’s long-term interests. Lamour went further, arguing that a FIFA president is meant to unite the organization’s members rather than divide them, and said he would accept the consequences of speaking out if it cost him his position.

Also Read: Team Vitality Leads Day One of Battle Royale in Astana

Infantino now finds himself under significant pressure ahead of his bid for a fourth term as FIFA president at the organization’s Congress in Morocco next March, a re-election that had been widely expected to pass unopposed before this week’s developments.

In his statement announcing the plan’s withdrawal, Infantino maintained that his original intention had been to strengthen member associations, particularly those most in need of support, and said his broader goal remains to bring the sport’s stakeholders back together.

With the proposal now shelved, attention turns to whether the confederations that pushed back this week will continue to press for changes to FIFA’s finances and governance, and whether Infantino’s path to a fourth term remains as clear as it appeared just days ago.