FIFA have abandoned plans to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors, marking a major setback for President Gianni Infantino.
The proposal received significant backlash worldwide, including from UEFA, CONCACAF, and the AFC, with UEFA even threatening to boycott the next World Cup entirely.
Following the uproar, FIFA has confirmed that the proposal will no longer proceed.
Gianni Infantino had offered FIFA’s 211 member associations £30m in funding if they backed plans to allow private investment in competitions including the men’s and women’s World Cup tournaments.
In a statement, the FIFA president acknowledged that the proposal had become too divisive.
“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,” Infantino said.
“As a result, this proposal will not proceed.”
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How Infantino’s plan crumbled
Under the proposal, FIFA would have created a new commercial subsidiary to manage its major competitions, including the World Cup.
The governing body intended to invite investors to purchase minority stakes in the new company, known as FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), while FIFA retained overall control.
A deadline of September 19th had been set for member associations to support the project, which would have seen them receive £15 million in funding.
The proposed investment group backing FFE was expected to be led by Thrive Eternal, an American venture capital firm founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, who is married to US President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump.
However, opposition from football’s continental governing bodies appears to have ultimately proved decisive.
UEFA’s 55 member associations, CONCACAF’s 35 and the AFC’s 46 account for 136 of FIFA’s 211 votes.
With only 106 votes required to approve the proposal, a united front from those three confederations alone was enough to make its passage virtually impossible.
CAF and the OFC had planned to discuss the proposal later this year, but by that stage the political momentum had already shifted firmly against Infantino’s plans, leaving the project effectively dead before a vote could take place.
Crushing defeat for Infantino
The humiliating U-turn from Infantino has left his position at the organisation in doubt.
UEFA intensified the pressure by declaring it had lost confidence in FIFA’s current leadership.
“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family,” the confederation said in a statement.
The statement also referenced Infantino’s promises when he was first elected FIFA president in 2016.
“When Gianni Infantino asked for the trust and the votes of FIFA’s member associations to elect him as their president in 2016, he said: ‘Of course we have to be transparent.’
“He told the assembled stakeholders: ‘The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA president. You are the national associations and the money of FIFA has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.'”
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham also joined in on the criticism of the FIFA president, becoming the first world leader to call on him to resign from his post.
The collapse of the investment proposal and the resulting backlash raise fresh questions about Infantino’s authority ahead of the next FIFA presidential election in Morocco in March 2027, where he had widely been expected to secure another term.
With UEFA now openly opposing his leadership and divisions across world football becoming increasingly outspoken, what had once appeared to be a straightforward re-election campaign may now prove considerably more challenging.
The end of Infantino’s reign?
The failed investment plan is only the latest controversy to engulf Infantino’s presidency.
From being scrutinised by FIFA’s ethics committee early in his tenure to awarding Donald Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in 2025, and criticism surrounding the expanded 2026 World Cup over high ticket prices and mandatory hydration breaks, Infantino’s leadership has repeatedly attracted controversy.
Yet this latest episode in his presidency may prove to be an insurmountable political setback, and one which may end up just costing him the most powerful job in world football.
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Michael Davey