Well yes, family, whoever is most up-to-date will have already forgotten it: Gianni Infantino's plan to sell part of the World Cup business has gone to hell. The FIFA president himself announced on Friday that the organization is abandoning the creation of its commercial subsidiary and that it will not sell the ~20% of it to private investors. Come on, it has swallowed its own flagship project. 😬
And note, this is not a whim: the project, known as FIFA Forward Enterprise, aimed to raise up to 4,200 million dollars by selling that stake. The idea was to bring investment funds into the World Cup business to launder (legally, eh) the big football money. But the UEFA of Ceferin put up a fight, internal criticisms intensified and even a close advisor of Infantino ended up resigning over the disagreement. I swear this has more twists than a Venezuelan soap opera. 🍿
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Photo: MCaviglia digimen.ch · CC BY-SA 3.0 / albinfo · CC BY-SA 4.0 — The house where all this is cooked, the FIFA headquarters in Zurich.
I leave you the table with the essentials so nothing escapes you:
Key | Actual data |
|---|---|
Project | FIFA Forward Enterprise (commercial subsidiary) |
Stake to sell | ~20% of the subsidiary |
Money that was being sought | Up to 4.200 million dollars |
Main opposition | UEFA (Ceferin) + internal criticism |
Collateral victim | A close advisor to Infantino, dismissed |
Current state | Archived plan, official rollback |
Note, this isn’t that Infantino is stupid: if 4.200 million were 20%, we’re talking about valuing the World Cup business at over 20 billion dollars. No one gives up that money just because. The question is whether this is a real defeat or just a tactical retreat to try again with the 2030 World Cup. 🧐
And here comes the good part, because this splits the fans like VAR in the small area. Some say it’s a relief that Ceferin and company have stopped football privatization; others say UEFA is just boycotting out of fear of losing power, not out of love for the sport. And a third group (the most realistic) that it doesn’t matter who manages the money, because in the end the ones paying the price are us with ticket prices. 👇
Infantino’s plan to sell 20% of the World Cup to investors: what do you think about it being stopped?
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My opinion as an ordinary forum member: I am one of those who think that football is not an ETF, but I also don't suck my finger: FIFA already bills what it bills and if it pulls back now it's because UEFA has shown its teeth in the middle of a calendar war. What pisses me off is that neither side is thinking about the fan, but rather who gets the cake of the next cycle.
So I'm throwing the real controversial questions at you: ¿is it good that the money from the funds goes into FIFA or do you prefer it to remain a ch