This was written in the aftermath of a World Cup in which the football on offer was largely pleasing to the eye (except for the Final itself!) but in which the off-field shenanigans and the presentation of the game on it (hydration breaks etc) did not assuage the widespread suspicion within football of FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s longer term plans.
Well, football’s defining moment; its crossroads; it’s raison d’etre and mission has arrived much sooner than any observer or commentator could have expected with Infantino’s proposal to sell the commercial rights of its tournaments, including the World Cup, to private investors. The backlash to this attempt “to sell the soul of football” in the words of UEFA has been immediate with UEFA deciding in a unanimous vote of its 55 member associations to boycott all FIFA tournaments, including next year’s Women’s World Cup and the 2030 men’s competition; a decision quickly followed by similar action from CONCACAF, the North and Central American and Caribbean Federation and the Asian Federation. Numerically, these add up to a sufficient voting majority within FIFA to sink the sale. It is to be hoped that a contra vote by the African Federation would deliver the coup de grace to the sale but since African countries are the traditional major beneficiaries of FIFA ‘s pork barrel largesse and would stand to gain again from the disbursements dressed up as “football developmental aid”; hope for their resistance might be futile, but maybe not.
As it stands, the arithmetic of FIFA member opposition to the sale could also spell curtains for Infantino at next year’s FIFA Presidential election. The resignation of Carlos Cordeiro, a close senior adviser to Infantino, in protest at the sale of equity in the World Cup could well be a strong indicator that it may already be dead in the water. The proposed sale has also aroused fierce opposition from the European Union and the new UK Prime Minister and keen football supporter Andy Burnham who has opined that Infantino is not fit to lead FIFA.
In fact, in developments which may have already rendered this article yesterday’s digital fish-and-chips wrapping, the proposal has indeed been dropped with Infantino’s Presidency in growing peril as UEFA are heading up a concerted campaign to oust him from his perch. The Welsh Football Association has started the figurative ball rolling with a letter of no-confidence in him, with their English counterparts expected to formally follow suit as I write. Before the crisis of last week exploded, all of UEFA’s 55 members, apart from Germany, Romania and Norway, had written letters to support Infantino’s candidature next March, making the re-election of the career Swiss football bureaucrat a virtual fait accompli.[1] Now expect withdrawals of these endorsements en masse.
Despite the foundering of his FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, a number of countries in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) publicly backed Infantino over the weekend. Following the endorsement of Infantino by the uber financial powerhouse that is Qatar, the smaller Asian associations Sri Lanka and Kuwait offered their public support. However the AFC rarely votes in unanimity, and it is possible that some disgruntled associations will rally around the UEFA campaign to oust Infantino. Gathering quickly around a suitable candidate is likely to be crucial in persuading Infantino that his game is up. Both the Confederation of African Football and the South American confederation, Conmebol, are fully behind Infantino, leaving Asia and North America as critical backgrounds in UEFA members’ quest to seek new leadership at Fifa.[2][3]
In addition, Infantino is also facing a rebellion from members of the FIFA council who are attempting to force an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), which could be the springboard for a leadership challenge. The FIFA council is the world governing body’s main decision-making forum comprised of 28 representatives of the six confederations, eight vice-presidents and Infantino. Under FIFA rules, a motion from 50% or 19 of the 37 council members can trigger an EGM.[4]
So how did it all come to this? The outlines were as follows: football’s world governing body would collaborate with the US bank JP Morgan to set up FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to raise hundreds of millions by selling a stake in the commercial rights of the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup to investors, with promises of an increase in distribution of “over $10bn” (£7.5bn) then being redistributed back to FIFA’s 211 member associations. Alarm bells rang immediately with those football cognoscenti repelled by Infantino’s public bromance with Donald Trump, with the knowledge that Thrive Capital, an investment company founded by Joshua Kushner – brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner - was heading up the quest for investors. The ill-fated venture was valued at about $20bn by sources with knowledge of FIFA’s proposals, with Infantino coveting enviously and looking to fully monetise football post-World Cup bounce in popularity with FIFA’s revenues from it revealed by the Guardian to exceed $15bn.[5]
FIFA had also promised an increase in annual disbursements and predicted a total of $10bn in extra funding would eventually be shared around. FIFA also stated that a majority of its 211 members must express an interest in taking the extra funding if the external investment was to be allowed. The sheer blatant conditionality and naked financial bullying of the FIFA’s plan lay in the geopolitical reality that many nations already depend on FIFA for the running of their operations and, in a contemporary sporting assertion of the pronouncement by King Louis XIV that “L’Etat, C’ est moi”, Infantino’s ex cathedra statement this year that without the governing body “there would be no football in 150 countries in the world”.[6] Such is the autocratic and imperialist agenda behind what in Orwellian Infantospeak was “an attempt to democratise world football,:"[7] This week has seen the denouement of FIFA as a supranational body, the playing out of its transmogrification into, in the words of Guardian columnist Marina Hyde “a travelling parasitic nation state”.[8]
Further probing into the 25-page sales deck tilted “FIFA Forward Enterprise Member Materials” produced by the US bank JP Morgan uncovers a seabed of the ghastly language of financial bromides that marked calamities such as the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market that triggered the credit crunch and global financial collapse of 2008 and, in the world of football, financial Armageddon for major clubs such as Leeds United, Glasgow Rangers and Deportivo La Coruna and the near extinction of clubs across lower leagues such as Portsmouth, Wigan, Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and the actual death of clubs such as Bordeaux and Bury FC. As well as the previously mentioned $20m ($15m) payment offered to all 211 FIFA member associations, the document projected that the four-year FIFA Forward payments would increase to $24m for each member by the 2035-39 cycle. It is made clear in the sales deck that such growth would come from “a growing tournament portfolio”, “third party sources of capital and debt financing”, and prioritising “high yield” partnerships and events.[9]
Such largesse would be recouped by virtual death of football by asphyxiation. For the JP MorganChase investor check prospect talks about more the doubling the number of global tournaments from 200 to 450, putting enormous strain on player workload or the game’s human capital which would the preferred argot for these income maximisers. The Club World Cup inaugurated last hear in the US last year as the dry-run for this year’s Infantino-Trump love fest was the first major parasitical innovation of this sort. Another would be Infantino vision of a biennial World Cup which he mused about five years ago. JP Morgan ventures further into football dystopia by floating the prospect of TV coverage of the biggest events such as the World Cup being sold to subscription channels or streamers, by referring to a plan to “expand and optimise media rights monetisation.” JP Morgan claims that FIFA is “undermonetised” but significantly uses comparators such as the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association (NBA) whose revenue figures are based on club or franchise earnings, rather than comparable governing bodies. FIFA’s stated annual revenue pf $3.6bn therefore compares unfavourably with the NFL’s compared revenue of $21.2bn, Major League Baseball’s $13.1bn and the NBA’s $12.5bn.[10].
Amongst the most glaring lacunae in the sales pitch are why FIFA, which has cash reserves of around $4bn and accumulated revenues of $15bn over the current four-year cycle, would need to take on debt; the absence of any reference to the identity of the investor group, projected returns or exit terns and, most disgracefully of all, not a single mention of women’s football.[11] In the words of one FIFA member, the figures were “a back of the envelope embarrassing undervaluation” and the literary style “banal AI- generated slop” . It was rife with American spellings and descriptors such as the reference to the World Cup as “the FIFA”. [12] It’s enthusiastic vision of “access to debt markets” is enough to send a chill down the spine of any European football fan such as those of Manchester United who have had to live with the legacy of the debt leveraged takeover of their club by the Glazer family in 2005.
It’s all about the money and jobs for the boys then. But then JP Morgan has form in such hubristic, half-cocked visions of the future for football. Five years ago, it ended up apologising to fans after its part in the plan to create a breakaway European Super League which imploded in the much the same time period as last week’s FIFA’s Forward Enterprise fiasco in the face of a firestorm of opposition of clubs outside the exclusive self-appointed elect, fans, national associations and politicians alike including Boris Johnston (remember him?). Back then, it said, “We clearly misjudged how this deal would be viewed by the wider football community and how it might affect them in the future” and promised that “we will learn from this”. Not for JP Morgan the chastening deterrents of eviction from office at the hands of the electorate or alarmed ruling parties that for politicians who break promises or who don’t learn from their mistakes.
But there is a wider lesson to be learnt outside of football from Gianni Infantino’s seemingly inexorable fall from grace. In the week which began with his self-pitying Instagram meltdown in which he posted:
In fact, in developments which may have already rendered this article yesterday’s digital fish-and-chips wrapping, the proposal has indeed been dropped with Infantino’s Presidency in growing peril as UEFA are heading up a concerted campaign to oust him from his perch. The Welsh Football Association has started the figurative ball rolling with a letter of no-confidence in him, with their English counterparts expected to formally follow suit as I write. Before the crisis of last week exploded, all of UEFA’s 55 members, apart from Germany, Romania and Norway, had written letters to support Infantino’s candidature next March, making the re-election of the career Swiss football bureaucrat a virtual fait accompli.[1] Now expect withdrawals of these endorsements en masse.
Despite the foundering of his FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, a number of countries in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) publicly backed Infantino over the weekend. Following the endorsement of Infantino by the uber financial powerhouse that is Qatar, the smaller Asian associations Sri Lanka and Kuwait offered their public support. However the AFC rarely votes in unanimity, and it is possible that some disgruntled associations will rally around the UEFA campaign to oust Infantino. Gathering quickly around a suitable candidate is likely to be crucial in persuading Infantino that his game is up. Both the Confederation of African Football and the South American confederation, Conmebol, are fully behind Infantino, leaving Asia and North America as critical backgrounds in UEFA members’ quest to seek new leadership at Fifa.[2][3]
In addition, Infantino is also facing a rebellion from members of the FIFA council who are attempting to force an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), which could be the springboard for a leadership challenge. The FIFA council is the world governing body’s main decision-making forum comprised of 28 representatives of the six confederations, eight vice-presidents and Infantino. Under FIFA rules, a motion from 50% or 19 of the 37 council members can trigger an EGM.[4]
So how did it all come to this? The outlines were as follows: football’s world governing body would collaborate with the US bank JP Morgan to set up FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to raise hundreds of millions by selling a stake in the commercial rights of the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup to investors, with promises of an increase in distribution of “over $10bn” (£7.5bn) then being redistributed back to FIFA’s 211 member associations. Alarm bells rang immediately with those football cognoscenti repelled by Infantino’s public bromance with Donald Trump, with the knowledge that Thrive Capital, an investment company founded by Joshua Kushner – brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner - was heading up the quest for investors. The ill-fated venture was valued at about $20bn by sources with knowledge of FIFA’s proposals, with Infantino coveting enviously and looking to fully monetise football post-World Cup bounce in popularity with FIFA’s revenues from it revealed by the Guardian to exceed $15bn.[5]
FIFA had also promised an increase in annual disbursements and predicted a total of $10bn in extra funding would eventually be shared around. FIFA also stated that a majority of its 211 members must express an interest in taking the extra funding if the external investment was to be allowed. The sheer blatant conditionality and naked financial bullying of the FIFA’s plan lay in the geopolitical reality that many nations already depend on FIFA for the running of their operations and, in a contemporary sporting assertion of the pronouncement by King Louis XIV that “L’Etat, C’ est moi”, Infantino’s ex cathedra statement this year that without the governing body “there would be no football in 150 countries in the world”.[6] Such is the autocratic and imperialist agenda behind what in Orwellian Infantospeak was “an attempt to democratise world football,:"[7] This week has seen the denouement of FIFA as a supranational body, the playing out of its transmogrification into, in the words of Guardian columnist Marina Hyde “a travelling parasitic nation state”.[8]
Further probing into the 25-page sales deck tilted “FIFA Forward Enterprise Member Materials” produced by the US bank JP Morgan uncovers a seabed of the ghastly language of financial bromides that marked calamities such as the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market that triggered the credit crunch and global financial collapse of 2008 and, in the world of football, financial Armageddon for major clubs such as Leeds United, Glasgow Rangers and Deportivo La Coruna and the near extinction of clubs across lower leagues such as Portsmouth, Wigan, Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and the actual death of clubs such as Bordeaux and Bury FC. As well as the previously mentioned $20m ($15m) payment offered to all 211 FIFA member associations, the document projected that the four-year FIFA Forward payments would increase to $24m for each member by the 2035-39 cycle. It is made clear in the sales deck that such growth would come from “a growing tournament portfolio”, “third party sources of capital and debt financing”, and prioritising “high yield” partnerships and events.[9]
Such largesse would be recouped by virtual death of football by asphyxiation. For the JP MorganChase investor check prospect talks about more the doubling the number of global tournaments from 200 to 450, putting enormous strain on player workload or the game’s human capital which would the preferred argot for these income maximisers. The Club World Cup inaugurated last hear in the US last year as the dry-run for this year’s Infantino-Trump love fest was the first major parasitical innovation of this sort. Another would be Infantino vision of a biennial World Cup which he mused about five years ago. JP Morgan ventures further into football dystopia by floating the prospect of TV coverage of the biggest events such as the World Cup being sold to subscription channels or streamers, by referring to a plan to “expand and optimise media rights monetisation.” JP Morgan claims that FIFA is “undermonetised” but significantly uses comparators such as the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association (NBA) whose revenue figures are based on club or franchise earnings, rather than comparable governing bodies. FIFA’s stated annual revenue pf $3.6bn therefore compares unfavourably with the NFL’s compared revenue of $21.2bn, Major League Baseball’s $13.1bn and the NBA’s $12.5bn.[10].
Amongst the most glaring lacunae in the sales pitch are why FIFA, which has cash reserves of around $4bn and accumulated revenues of $15bn over the current four-year cycle, would need to take on debt; the absence of any reference to the identity of the investor group, projected returns or exit terns and, most disgracefully of all, not a single mention of women’s football.[11] In the words of one FIFA member, the figures were “a back of the envelope embarrassing undervaluation” and the literary style “banal AI- generated slop” . It was rife with American spellings and descriptors such as the reference to the World Cup as “the FIFA”. [12] It’s enthusiastic vision of “access to debt markets” is enough to send a chill down the spine of any European football fan such as those of Manchester United who have had to live with the legacy of the debt leveraged takeover of their club by the Glazer family in 2005.
It’s all about the money and jobs for the boys then. But then JP Morgan has form in such hubristic, half-cocked visions of the future for football. Five years ago, it ended up apologising to fans after its part in the plan to create a breakaway European Super League which imploded in the much the same time period as last week’s FIFA’s Forward Enterprise fiasco in the face of a firestorm of opposition of clubs outside the exclusive self-appointed elect, fans, national associations and politicians alike including Boris Johnston (remember him?). Back then, it said, “We clearly misjudged how this deal would be viewed by the wider football community and how it might affect them in the future” and promised that “we will learn from this”. Not for JP Morgan the chastening deterrents of eviction from office at the hands of the electorate or alarmed ruling parties that for politicians who break promises or who don’t learn from their mistakes.
But there is a wider lesson to be learnt outside of football from Gianni Infantino’s seemingly inexorable fall from grace. In the week which began with his self-pitying Instagram meltdown in which he posted:
To those behind their pens and papers, behind their screens spreading hate and false rumours, I want to say that while you are sitting behind, we at FIFA are on the frontlines organising, working hard, and delivering the best show in the world.
And which ended in the ruination of his plan to deliver just the latter which could have led to “A World Cup with no football teams”[13]. He should reflect that he has forgotten one of the golden rules of modern life – it is fine not to post.[14] The problems which those with a constant online presence like Zac Polanski, leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, have encountered in offline life through inadvertent reposts and posts (to give him an early benefit of the doubt) offer salutary lessons to people in the public life and in the public eye. Serial shitposters such as Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the prominent exceptions that prove that rule.
References
[1] Nick Ames and Matt Hughes. Infantino in peril. UEFA members prepare to oppose his FIFA re-election. The Guardian 3 August 2026 p.44
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid
[5] Matt Hughes and Paul MacInnes ‘Selling the soul of football’. FIFA faces backlash over $20bn proposal for World Cup rights. The Guardian 28 July 2026
[6] Paul MacInnes, Is World Cup for sale? The lowdown on FIFA’s plans and next stages. The Guardian 26 Juily 2026 p.41
[7] Ibid
[8] Marina Hyde, Who would dare ridicule creator of world peace Infantino? You? The Guardian Opinion 29 July 2026 p.3
[9] Matt Hughes, FIFA's sales pitch. More tournaments, more debt and higher ticket prices. The Guardian 31 July 2026 p.40
[10] Ibid
[11] Ibid
[12]Rob Draper. Game over? As he scraps has ‘shabby’ World Cup sell-off deal, Infantino’s job hangs by a thread. The Observer 2 August 2026 pp.6-7
[13] Marina Hyde, A World Cup with no football teams: it’s a bold move, Gianni. The Guardian Opinion 1 August 2026 p.3
[1] Nick Ames and Matt Hughes. Infantino in peril. UEFA members prepare to oppose his FIFA re-election. The Guardian 3 August 2026 p.44
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid
[5] Matt Hughes and Paul MacInnes ‘Selling the soul of football’. FIFA faces backlash over $20bn proposal for World Cup rights. The Guardian 28 July 2026
[6] Paul MacInnes, Is World Cup for sale? The lowdown on FIFA’s plans and next stages. The Guardian 26 Juily 2026 p.41
[7] Ibid
[8] Marina Hyde, Who would dare ridicule creator of world peace Infantino? You? The Guardian Opinion 29 July 2026 p.3
[9] Matt Hughes, FIFA's sales pitch. More tournaments, more debt and higher ticket prices. The Guardian 31 July 2026 p.40
[10] Ibid
[11] Ibid
[12]Rob Draper. Game over? As he scraps has ‘shabby’ World Cup sell-off deal, Infantino’s job hangs by a thread. The Observer 2 August 2026 pp.6-7
[13] Marina Hyde, A World Cup with no football teams: it’s a bold move, Gianni. The Guardian Opinion 1 August 2026 p.3
[14] Hyde, Guardian 29 July 2026 op cit
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
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