The FIFA greed machine goes into overdrive with $26 billion plan

Gianni Infantino clearly is not a fan of Aesop. In the fable of the goose that laid the golden eggs, the farmer grows impatient with waiting for one each day and cuts the bird open to get them all in one go, killing it and losing his source of wealth. The FIFA president’s plan to set up a US$20 billion (S$25.7 billion) commercial vehicle with money from external investors reflects a similar impulse to accelerate the financial rewards from football’s popularity. The global howls of outrage it has provoked suggest his project is doomed.

The response has been unsparing. Europe’s governing body for the sport, UEFA, voted on July 30 to boycott FIFA tournaments if Infantino proceeds with his plans; it had protested that the “soul and governance” of football are not assets to trade. Britain’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, wrote that the World Cup “was never anyone’s to sell”. The European commissioner for sport bemoaned “corrosive” commercialisation.

Such high-minded language may resonate with supporters but it obscures what is truly objectionable about the plan. It is a bit late to argue that football is not for sale: The final whistle blew on that debate long ago. Football is sold all the time, by everyone from individuals, clubs, agents and national associations to international groups.

There is nothing wrong in principle with FIFA, as football’s global authority, setting up a separate entity to handle commercial operations – at least judged by the standards of what already happens at other levels. UEFA has its own unit, UC3, a venture with European clubs to manage media, sponsorship and licensing rights. The Spanish league La Liga sold a stake in a corporate vehicle set up to hold its business interests to CVC Capital Partners in 2021. A year later, the private equity firm also took a stake in the commercial subsidiary of the French league.

FIFA’s proposed entity would bring together its commercial rights – broadcast, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing – with the operational delivery of tournaments. The organisation proposes to raise US$4.2 billion selling a minority stake to outside investors based on an implied valuation of US$20 billion. It would then offer US$20 million in one-off development funding to all of its 211 member associations that choose to participate, potentially distributing all the money raised.

The sale in effect pulls forward revenue from future tournaments to fund increased investment in the present. FIFA earns the vast majority of its income from the men’s World Cup, which takes place once every four years. Part of its mandate is to drive global development of the sport. Why wait for years of disbursements to accumulate when that new national stadium or training centre could be built now? This is the logic of the proposal. It will, as Infantino contends, promote the global growth of football, particularly in smaller and more deprived markets.

It is the way the plan has been formulated and pitched that merits opprobrium. There appears to have been no prior consultation with FIFA’s members. Multiple questions remain unanswered. Why is it necessary to sell a stake to outside investors? Equity capital is typically more expensive than debt; the same result could be achieved by selling bonds. Potential conflicts of interest abound. FIFA promises it will be “carefully selecting” investors – but it has already chosen the most important one: Joshua Kushner, the venture-capitalist brother of Jared Kushner, who is the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. The whiff of cronyism is impossible to ignore.

Blocking the plan is not straightforward due to the asymmetry between voting and economic power in FIFA’s political structure. Its one-association, one-vote system gives equal weight to the smallest and largest associations. This creates opportunities to buy influence in the least populous and most disadvantaged places. A promise of US$20 million in funding is a drop in the ocean for European nations that have multibillion-dollar professional leagues; it may be transformative for an underdeveloped country with a population counted in the thousands rather than millions. FIFA has tried to force the issue by setting a deadline for members to support its plan, to UEFA’s fury.

But economic power is not so easily denied. The vote by UEFA’s 55 member nations is a potent threat: A World Cup without European participation would be shorn of any claim to be a legitimate global championship. The body has already bridled at FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup, which the European football regulator sees as intruding on its territory. The introduction of equity investors will add pressure for bigger and more frequent tournaments that impinge on the sporting calendars of regional federations. A previous attempt by Infantino to set up a commercial venture with Japan’s SoftBank Group foundered in 2018 on resistance from UEFA. This time, opposition has even come from CONCACAF, the body for North America, which just hosted the World Cup.

The lack of process and transparency in the FIFA plan cannot be separated from the people and organisation promoting it. The proposal might have landed differently had it not come hot on the heels of the festival of greed that was the 2026 World Cup, with its ramped-up ticket prices (including a resale market from which FIFA took a generous cut) and dubious governance. Infantino’s hobnobbing with Trump, including the absurd “peace prize” he presented to the US President in December, has eroded his support. This bizarre closeness was reflected in a 15-page statement that the FIFA president posted on Instagram this week, a very Trumpian document that alternates between denunciations of “haters” and professions of love.

If Infantino’s project goes the way of his 2018 venture, he will have only himself to blame. Golden geese require careful stewardship. Kill one through over-eagerness, and you may not find another. BLOOMBERG