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World Cup for sale - Infantino planning to sell stakes to investors
Comments
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At the most basic level Infantino tried to sell something he didn't own.
Had it come off the commercial big boys would have called all the shots with Infantino no doubt heading the organisation on a huge salary where no one could touch him.
It's staggering to think how much those dreaded hydration breaks raised alone, before you even look at anything else. The figure was reported to be between 2 and 3 hundred thousand dollars per 30 seconds for early round matches, 750,000 dollars for a more high profile game and up to 8 million for a 30 second spot in the final. These figures breed corruption and the game would certainly change to accommodate the so called 'investors' demanding returns for their money.
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Agree. The voting system should be based either on population like the EU, or better still the number of season ticket holders at all professional clubs in each country.ForeverAddickted said:Sadly nothing will change in the long run... I'm all for democracy within FIFA, but equally feel that the only way FIFA can truly reform is by updating the voting system, and have something in place that doesn't give a country the same power as the likes of England ot France when their interest comes from money, rather than progressing the game.
'progressing the game' can be defined differently by everyone. Personally I don't care about helping countries like the USA - let them carry on with their own daft 'football'0 -
Football, in its current form, wouldn't exist without billionaires.
Billionaires fund the development of club players that form the country teams that participate in the international game.
So why shouldn't billionaires be allowed to invest and profit from the international game at it's highest level?
Hypocritical to oppose billionaire investment in the World Cup, but to expect the same group to fork out silly money for the next star player at club level.18 -
Lol. Do we 'expect' billionaire owners?
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I think you massively miss the point.RickAddick said:Football, in its current form, wouldn't exist without billionaires.
Billionaires fund the development of club players that form the country teams that participate in the international game.
So why shouldn't billionaires be allowed to invest and profit from the international game at it's highest level?
Hypocritical to oppose billionaire investment in the World Cup, but to expect the same group to fork out silly money for the next star player at club level.
Lots of people (not necessarily “billionaires”) invest in football, and will continue to do so.
But no one can sell something they don’t own, and no one can buy shares in something that the owners aren’t selling.
And that’s before you even touch on the integrity of the sport.7 -
Football in its current form is shit4
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Despite UEFA with its 55 votes being totally opposed, Infantino has only caved in with the news that Asia 46 and Concacaf 35 votes, meant he had no chance of 106 members(over 50%) voting in favour.
Even when the power house of football UEFA were vehemently against this plan, Infantino smugly carried on as he thought the others would take the financial bait.
FIFA Chief operating officer Kevin Lamour said it's own governing body has been deceived and with Carlos Cordeiro, Infantino senior advisor on global strategy resigning saying football can't mortgage it's future then the plan collapsed like a house of cards.
In most organisations Infantino would be escorted out the building for going rogue but as this is FIFA...
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The vast majority of football exists without billionaire investment.RickAddick said:Football, in its current form, wouldn't exist without billionaires.
Billionaires fund the development of club players that form the country teams that participate in the international game.
So why shouldn't billionaires be allowed to invest and profit from the international game at it's highest level?
Hypocritical to oppose billionaire investment in the World Cup, but to expect the same group to fork out silly money for the next star player at club level.6 -
How would it not exist? The only difference would be less money for players, agents and any other hangers on.RickAddick said:Football, in its current form, wouldn't exist without billionaires.
Billionaires fund the development of club players that form the country teams that participate in the international game.
So why shouldn't billionaires be allowed to invest and profit from the international game at it's highest level?
Hypocritical to oppose billionaire investment in the World Cup, but to expect the same group to fork out silly money for the next star player at club level.9 -
Billionaire involvement in football is precisely why Charlton will probably never play in the Premier League again, if you want just one, forum-relevant effect of a force which is literally destroying the planet6
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Imagine how awful you need to be in order for 55 European countries to all agree on something.17
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What utter nonsenseRickAddick said:Football, in its current form, wouldn't exist without billionaires.
Billionaires fund the development of club players that form the country teams that participate in the international game.
So why shouldn't billionaires be allowed to invest and profit from the international game at it's highest level?
Hypocritical to oppose billionaire investment in the World Cup, but to expect the same group to fork out silly money for the next star player at club level.3 -
But are we happy with how football currently exists? Corruption, cheating, dominated by money, fan exploitation, Infantino, Hydration breaks, Justin Bieber FFS- its hardly the beautiful game in its current form.RickAddick said:Football, in its current form, wouldn't exist without billionaires.
Billionaires fund the development of club players that form the country teams that participate in the international game.
So why shouldn't billionaires be allowed to invest and profit from the international game at it's highest level?
Hypocritical to oppose billionaire investment in the World Cup, but to expect the same group to fork out silly money for the next star player at club level.9 -
Isn't FBI looking in to Argentina governing body fraud. Probably will come back to FIFA money in some way.1
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Agree with this, I pay no attention to the PL have no desire for us to get there, would take a hard reset of football tomorrow...IdleHans said:Football in its current form is shit1 -
I think Infantino would have expected UEFA to oppose his scheme but enough other federaions were going to to make his scheme impossible to implement. Uefa can now take him down working with those other federations. They have a few months to find the right candidate to stand against him but I think Infantino is toast.7
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Chris_from_Sidcup said:
Given that majority of problems with Blatter and now Infantino are money-related, surely Al-Khelaifi would be better? He's already a billionaire so you'd expect less likely to be involved in corruption and doing things for personal gain.ForeverAddickted said:
Given how the FIA President runs things, I question if Al-Khelaifi will be any betterfenaddick said:
Doesn't need to resign, he's up for re-election next year. Currently standing unopposed but UEFA are trying to get PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi to stand as they think he'd have a chance of winningMuttleyCAFC said:Surely the money behind it will disappear if it is not truly a World Cup anymore. You would think the other confederations know that so will be reluctant to sign up to it. Infantino has no shame so I doubt he will resign. He will just drop the idea and think of new ways to enrich himself further.Trump is a billionaire but he’s always up for more millions.2 -
UEFA welcomes FIFA’s decision to withdraw its plan to sell a stake in its competitions – including the World Cup – into private hands.
The proposal was unanimously rejected by UEFA’s national associations and by many other federations and confederations of all sizes around the world, whose job it is to protect football.
UEFA thanks all the fans, leagues, clubs, players, individuals, associations and confederations that opposed the scheme, alongside the many Prime Ministers, Heads of State and commentators who have demonstrated to the FIFA President that football is not for sale.
We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game. We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.
It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again. That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table. The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.
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. I have been this in the last 15 years of my life in UEFA. You will have to play a part every day in the life of FIFA,” before telling the assembled stakeholders, “The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA President. It’s your money. You are the national associations and the money of FIFA has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.”
On both these promises, he has failed to deliver. The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through was anything but transparent.
And with reserves standing at over $5bn, he has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.
UEFA will begin work immediately with partners and stakeholders all over the world and right across the game to propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward programme.
We must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in FIFA’s bank account to deliver the kick start that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of FIFA. But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.
This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in FIFA has only just begun.
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There are two elements of this whole saga that feel critical to me.
1) The first is the difference in opinion between established footballing nations and nations where football as a national pastime is in its infancy. It’s very easy for the British, German, Spanish etc to be up in arms about the threat of Infantino to football as a whole, but less established nations will feel that the ‘bigger’ nations already have the riches and it should be shared out more. You can understand those nations feeling very positive about proposals that promise huge injections of cash and offer the opportunity to close the gap on other nations. [It’s not a perfect comparison, but if you imagine the EFL proposing an enormous change to english football that meant EFL clubs got a massive payout at the expense of Prem clubs, you can bet that the Premier League would fight it, but in this scenario, most of us would be on the side of the little guys.] I’m not saying Infantino’s proposal was a good idea, but you can see why smaller nations might be on board.This whole situation, apart from anything else, also feeds into the debate on the structure of voting in FIFA. The fact that every nation gets a single vote, regardless of size, population, footballing population, history, or any other metric is a structure open to cynical and self serving abuse. It’s pretty much universally understood that Infantino (and Blatter before him) focuses so much on improving smaller, less traditionally footballing nations, because it effectively buys those nations’ votes for his own benefit.
2) Secondly, I think it’s important that we remember that if Infantino gets ousted, it’s not going to be a magic bullet that stops all of the corruption in football.
Remember how happy we all were when that rancid slug Blatter got removed. There was an assumption that FIFA would improve, but if anything, Infantino is worse.Also, don’t forget that UEFA aren’t squeaky clean. Remember Platini’s leadership? He was as bent as a nine bob note and, more recently, the shenanigans UEFA were up to with the proposed Super League were only marginally less repulsive than this FIFA shit show.
Whoever takes the reigns at FIFA, UEFA or any of the organisations (including national FAs) in future, there should be a healthy dollop of skepticism as to how they balance the welfare and spirit of the game with how much money they are looking to make.
At the end of the day, we’re going to continue to see corruption at the heads of these organisations for the foreseeable. Which is not to say we should just shrug and say ‘Oh well’. If anything it should be the catalyst to cause football people from all over the world to demand more transparency in the governance of the game.
Infantino is a blight on the game, but he’s not the cause of the disease of corruption in the game, he’s just the most recent mutation.8 -
You're quite right. And it'd be a lot fucking better for it.RickAddick said:Football, in its current form, wouldn't exist without billionaires.
Billionaires fund the development of club players that form the country teams that participate in the international game.
So why shouldn't billionaires be allowed to invest and profit from the international game at it's highest level?
Hypocritical to oppose billionaire investment in the World Cup, but to expect the same group to fork out silly money for the next star player at club level.10 -
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I can’t see Infantino getting re-elected after this fiasco. A terrible lack of judgment. He’s going to get so much flak in the coming months that I’d be surprised if he even stood for re-election.He got carried away with his own hubris.2
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What’s the poor bloke gonna do for money if he’s voted out? I worry for him…Rob said:I can’t see Infantino getting re-elected after this fiasco. A terrible lack of judgment. He’s going to get so much flak in the coming months that I’d be surprised if he even stood for re-election.He got carried away with his own hubris.3 -
The home of football, Sheffield FCrananegra said:Andy Burnham has become the first leader of a major country to call for Infantino to go.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/31/andy-burnham-calls-on-infantino-to-resign-over-outrageous-world-cup-plans
On a visit to a community centre in Sheffield.0 -
The members of the FIFA Council who are meant to run FIFA only heard about it in the press. They should sack him and if he refuses to go (as he will) take legal action to remove him.2
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Infantino spent far too much time with Trump. Starting with the ludicrous FIFA Peace Prize, given to one of the least deserving of such an award.
The extortionate ticket and travel prices for the 2026 World Cup and Infantino's inability to criticise the Trump regime for excluding fans and even officials from countries he doesn't like.
Finally the latest debacle involving the brother of Trump's son-in-law, that would make him even wealthier.
Infantino needs to be removed from power, the money has gone to his head.7 -
But the 'bigger nations' deserve 'the riches' as it is they who founded football leagues earlier in history and developed the game in their respective countries.lordromford said:There are two elements of this whole saga that feel critical to me.
1) The first is the difference in opinion between established footballing nations and nations where football as a national pastime is in its infancy. It’s very easy for the British, German, Spanish etc to be up in arms about the threat of Infantino to football as a whole, but less established nations will feel that the ‘bigger’ nations already have the riches and it should be shared out more.
The smaller nations can try to catch up but they shouldn't get an equal share of what the big nations have created for themselves.
I don't think it can be compared to Premier League and EFL clubs either. Many current EFL clubs were in the top division years ago and have contributed to the development of English football in the past. Also, some current Premier League clubs do less now than EFL clubs.0 -
The problem with FIFA and the less developed/poorer nations is that FIFA gives them money for support rather than for them to improve. So a few people get rich on it from poorer federations. When they get caught FIFA bans them and acts all innocent. The most cost effective system would be for FIFA officials outside the country to work out what is needed and set that up.0
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Do the smaller nations want money for grass roots or to line their own pockets? FIFA will never be free of corruption when countries that don't meaningfully participate have equal voice to those that provide the product and drive billions in revenue.
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Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it’s a viewpoint I agree with, I’m just pointing out that all of our opinions are coloured (to some extent at least) by what’s better for ourselves. With that in mind, I can see why smaller “non football” nations would want a better share. What I object to is a disproportionate amount of influence being given to those countries.jimmymelrose said:
But the 'bigger nations' deserve 'the riches' as it is they who founded football leagues earlier in history and developed the game in their respective countries.lordromford said:There are two elements of this whole saga that feel critical to me.
1) The first is the difference in opinion between established footballing nations and nations where football as a national pastime is in its infancy. It’s very easy for the British, German, Spanish etc to be up in arms about the threat of Infantino to football as a whole, but less established nations will feel that the ‘bigger’ nations already have the riches and it should be shared out more.
The smaller nations can try to catch up but they shouldn't get an equal share of what the big nations have created for themselves.
I don't think it can be compared to Premier League and EFL clubs either. Many current EFL clubs were in the top division years ago and have contributed to the development of English football in the past. Also, some current Premier League clubs do less now than EFL clubs.In my opinion, the history, tradition and in a lot of cases, cultural influence of football that has been built up over more than a century in some countries should hold a lot more weight than FIFA are prepared to allow.
Also, I know the EFL model wasn’t perfect. I did say that in the post. But it was an illustration of how fans are often outraged when something affects their own club or country negatively, but they’re less bothered when they stand to benefit from it.2 -
Joe Football Fan contributes more to the sport than all billionaires put together by putting bums on seats. Voting in FIFA should be based on groups (Europe, Oceana, Asia, Concaf) rather than individual nations which encourages bribery and corruption.1
