Gianni Infantino Abandons Controversial World Cup Stake Plan
Gianni Infantino has scrapped his most explosive idea yet – and he has done it under duress.
The FIFA president has abandoned plans to sell a stake in future World Cup profits to private equity investors after a ferocious backlash from across the game, a revolt that spread from Zurich’s corridors to the highest levels of global politics.
A £20bn vision that tore the game apart
On Tuesday, FIFA unveiled “FIFA Forward Enterprise” (FFE), a new vehicle that would bundle together the organisation’s commercial rights – broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing – with the operational running of its tournaments.
The pitch was bold. FFE, FIFA said, could be valued at around $20bn (£15bn). Minority, non‑controlling stakes would be sold to external investors, raising up to $4.2bn (£3.1bn). In return, the governing body promised more than $10bn in “football development funding” over the next four years.
Infantino then gave national associations a deadline of September 19 to back the project, sweetening the deal with a £30.1m incentive for those who signed up.
The reaction was instant – and hostile.
UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) lined up against the proposal. In England, Prime Minister Andy Burnham publicly condemned the plan and called for “an urgent review” of FIFA’s governance, warning that “football belongs to fans”. The FA voiced “deep concern”.
The pressure finally told.
“Divisions” force a retreat
In the early hours of Saturday, FIFA released a short, pointed statement from Infantino himself. It was notable not just for its timing – 12.30am BST – but for what it did not contain. No apology. No admission of error. Just a retreat dressed in the language of unity.
“The FIFA Forward Enterprise project was intended to provide a basis for further strengthening our FIFA Member Associations and our sport worldwide, especially in those countries where support is most needed,” Infantino said.
He stressed that the project was always conditional on support from member associations, the FIFA Council, confederations and “wider stakeholders”.
“Having listened carefully to all the views,” he added, “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. Our purpose has always been – and will always be – to unite and improve.
“As a result, this proposal will not proceed.”
Infantino promised to “bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks” to keep growing the game, particularly in countries that “mostly need our support”.
The climbdown drew a swift response from one of his most powerful critics in Asia. Writing on the AFC website, its president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa welcomed FIFA’s U-turn and underlined how decisions of this scale must be made.
“Any initiative that has the potential to impact global football will be presented and discussed with the Confederations, the FIFA Council, Member Associations and other stakeholders in a timely, transparent and meaningful manner,” he wrote.
“The future of global football must always be shaped through proper consultation, collective dialogue and respect for the established governance structures of our game.”
That line – “proper consultation” – cut to the heart of the anger.
Revolt from within
The external criticism was damaging. What rocked Infantino even more was the mutiny from his own inner circle.
Carlos Cordeiro, one of his senior advisors and a former banker, resigned in protest. He called the privatisation plan “a bad deal for football” and “for the long-term future of the game”.
“As a senior advisor to the FIFA president, a former banker, and a lifelong football fan, I cannot stand by while FIFA considers selling a stake in the World Cup,” he said in an exclusive statement to Sky News. “Let me be clear: I had no involvement in this proposal, and I oppose it unequivocally.”
Soon after, another key figure broke ranks. FIFA’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour accused the organisation’s leadership of a lack of openness over the project. He said staff had been “deceived” and “deserve better than contempt and intimidation”, in comments to the Associated Press.
Lamour described the World Cup sell-off as “the project of one person” and urged football leaders to act.
Those interventions came just hours after FIFA had tried to steady the ship with a defensive statement insisting “nobody is selling football”.
By Friday night, that line was in tatters.
A president under siege
Inside FIFA, the mood has shifted. What once looked like another Infantino power play now resembles a serious miscalculation.
Sky Sports News chief correspondent Kaveh Solhekol reported that Infantino’s decision to pull the plug on FFE was “a desperate attempt to keep his job as FIFA president”. With pressure building from every direction, the president moved to “save his own skin”.
The way the retreat was communicated told its own story. The late-night release was explicitly marked as being attributable to “the FIFA president” – a clear signal that Infantino, not the institution, owned this failed project.
The statement was unusually short by FIFA standards. Anyone searching it for the word “sorry” searched in vain. For Infantino, Solhekol noted, “sorry still seems to be the hardest word”.
The bigger question now hangs over his future.
In ordinary circumstances, a fiasco of this scale would shred a leader’s reputation. In Infantino’s case, many inside the game argue there is little left to damage. Even so, unseating a FIFA president is notoriously difficult, and those who know him expect him to cling to power for as long as possible.
The timing is critical. A FIFA presidential election is scheduled for March. Until this week, Infantino looked almost untouchable. He had the backing of more than 200 of FIFA’s 211 member associations – including the English FA – and appeared set to run unopposed.
Now, that landscape is shifting. Federations that once queued up to endorse him are quietly reassessing.
Potential challengers must declare their candidacy by November 18. Between now and then, influential figures across the sport will be sounding out alternatives, weighing whether this is the moment to move against a weakened incumbent.
Infantino, meanwhile, faces an awkward round of explanations – to FIFA staff, Council members, confederation presidents, national federation leaders and the investors he had courted in secret for a project that has now collapsed.
There is even the political dimension. Infantino had promised former US president Donald Trump something he could not deliver. Trump, as the football world knows, “doesn’t like losers”.
How long before even Trump decides Infantino is yesterday’s man?
Who steps in if he falls?
Names are already circulating, even if most of them are keeping their distance in public.
Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the Paris Saint-Germain president and one of the most powerful figures in the modern game, has been mentioned. He sits on the UEFA executive committee and carries enormous influence. Yet, by all indications, he is not interested in replacing Infantino.
Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa is a more natural contender. He finished second to Infantino in the presidential vote a decade ago and now leads the AFC, which formally opposed the World Cup sell-off. His stance on FFE has only strengthened his standing among those who want a return to more traditional governance.
Another potential candidate is Victor Montagliani, the president of CONCACAF. The last World Cup was staged in three of his confederation’s countries, and historically CONCACAF has been close to Infantino. Their rejection of the FFE proposal on Thursday marked a significant break.
Then there is Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA’s president. Within Europe he would be a hugely popular choice. He offers a starkly different vision of how football should be run – one without hydration breaks introduced as spectacle, without FIFA Peace Prizes, without Qatari-owned private jets for the president, without $1m (£742,000) World Cup tickets.
Ceferin, though, has never publicly shown any desire to move to FIFA. His reluctance leaves a vacuum that others may yet try to fill.
For now, talk of successors remains just that – talk. Infantino is wounded, under intense scrutiny and, by any measure, fighting for his job. But the dam has not yet fully broken. No rival has stepped forward, no formal campaign has begun.
The sell-off plan is dead. The political reckoning it has triggered is very much alive.
The World Cup, football’s crown jewel, has survived this attempt to parcel off its future. The next question is whether the man who tried to do it can survive the fallout.
