Fifa has confirmed plans to sell a significant stake in the commercial rights to its tournaments — including the men’s and women’s FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup — to private investors, a move that has triggered an immediate and furious backlash from UEFA and, according to the report, leading European clubs.
In a strongly worded statement, UEFA accused Fifa of “attempting to sell the soul of football” and warned the proposal “crosses a line”, with the European governing body believed to be considering its legal position. The plans were reported by The Guardian.
What Fifa is proposing — and who is involved
Fifa said it is working with US bank JP Morgan to establish a new entity called Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE). The concept, as outlined in the report, is for FFE to raise “hundreds of millions of dollars” by selling a stake in the commercial rights attached to Fifa’s flagship competitions.
According to The Guardian, Thrive Capital — an investment company founded by Joshua Kushner — is leading the search for investors.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino said the plan would see “the commercial side of the game [operating] as a focused, dedicated business, with its value shared more and better all around the world”. However, the proposal still requires approval by a “majority” of Fifa’s member associations, with Fifa declining to comment on when a vote may take place, per the report.
Infographic-style facts block
New entity: Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE)
Banking partner (confirmed by Fifa): JP Morgan
Rights referenced: Men’s and women’s World Cups; Club World Cup
Reported valuation: Around $20bn (sources cited by The Guardian)
Distribution promise cited: “Over $10bn” redistributed to 211 member associations (as described in the report)
Funding claim in statement: Increase from $8m to $20m per association per year (as described in the report)
UEFA’s response: ‘This crosses a line’
UEFA’s statement went beyond standard political sparring and framed the proposal as a governance issue, criticising what it described as a lack of transparency and warning national associations and stakeholders to take the matter seriously.
“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” UEFA said of the FFE plan. “UEFA takes it extremely seriously. So should every National Football Association. So should every stakeholder: leagues, clubs, players, supporters, governments and everyone who cares about the future of the game.”
“The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade – especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not Fifa’s to sell.”
The Guardian also reported that sources at “numerous elite clubs” were highly critical of the proposal in private, underlining how quickly the idea has united influential European voices against Fifa’s latest commercial push.
Why the stakes are so high — and what happens next
At the heart of the dispute is control: not simply over revenue, but over the direction of the sport’s flagship events and the decision-making that surrounds them. The Guardian reported that Fifa Council members were “surprised” by the announcement and had been sidelined from the decision-making process — a detail that will only intensify scrutiny around how any vote is structured and what information member associations receive before being asked to approve it.
Financially, the proposal is being framed by Fifa as a mechanism to increase distributions across its 211 member associations — a major political lever given the voting arithmetic of world football. The Guardian reported that sources with knowledge of the proposals put the venture’s valuation at around $20bn, and linked the timing to Fifa’s confidence in football’s growing global popularity following this summer’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The report also noted The Guardian had previously revealed Fifa’s revenues for that tournament would exceed $15bn, up from a projected $13bn — growth that appears to have emboldened Infantino’s push to “seek further riches”.
This is not Infantino’s first attempt to bring private capital into Fifa’s ecosystem. The Guardian reported that in 2018 he agreed a deal in principle with SoftBank to provide $25bn in funding tied to an expanded Club World Cup and a global Nations League, but the plan failed to gain sufficient support, “largely due to opposition from Europe”.
The immediate next steps are twofold: first, whether Fifa formally sets a timeline and process for the required vote among member associations; and second, whether UEFA escalates beyond statements into formal legal action. With relationships between the organisations described as being at an “all-time low” in the report, the political fight now looks set to play out across boardrooms, legal teams and national associations — with the commercial future of the FIFA World Cup at the centre of it.
Source: The Guardian
