FIFA plans: Infantino under pressure as senior advisor quits
Deutsche Welle · LC · trust 44/100
After regional football federations condemned FIFA plans for private investment, Carlos Cordeiro, senior advisor to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, tendered his resignation.
https://p.dw.com/p/5Hzrw World football's governing body, FIFA, and its president, Gianni Infantino, are facing a bitter backlash over private investment plans Image: Christian Spicker/IMAGO Advertisement FIFA President Gianni Infantino was under increasing pressure on Friday as global opposition grew to his controversial private investment plans and one of his senior advisors resigned in protest.
The football world was rocked earlier this week when it was reported that FIFA, the sport's global governing body, was planning to sell a stake in a new commercial subsidiary to private equity investors close to US President Donald Trump , prompting widespread outrage.
European football's governing body, UEFA, quickly condemned the plans with its 55 member associations voting unanimously to boycott future FIFA competitions — including the next men's World Cup in 2030 but potentially starting with the under-20 Women's World Cup on September 5 — were the plans to be implemented.
The Europeans soon received backing from CONCACAF, the regional body representing 41 North American and Caribbean football federations, and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) with its 47 members, technically robbing Infantino of majority support among FIFA's 211 member associations (MAs).
On Friday, the pressure on FIFA grew even more when Carlos Cordeiro, former head of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) and more recently a senior advisor to both Infantino and President Trump during this year's men's World Cup , resigned in protest at the plans, which he described as a "bad deal for football."
In statement, Cordeiro, 69-year-old former partner at Goldman Sachs, questioned why FIFA needed to seek private equity investment at all given its unprecedented World Cup profits, and criticized a lack of transparancy, oversight and due process surrounding the plans.
"FIFA already has access to extraordinary financial resources," he said. "The organization sits on billions of dollars in reserves and no debt. The FIFA president himself has highlighted the $15 billion in revenue generated [during FIFA's last four-year World Cup cycle] between 2022 and 2026.
"If member associations believe additional investment is needed to develop the game, FIFA already has the financial capacity to provide that support from its existing resources. Against that backdrop, selling a permanent stake in football's most valuable asset to raise $4.2 billion makes little sense. It is mortgaging football's future without any compelling justification."
Despite the opposition voiced by UEFA, CONCACAF, AFC and individual national associations including the German Football Federation (DFB), FIFA had earlier doubled down on its plans to establish "FIFA Forward Enterprise" (FFE).
The subsidiary, valued by FIFA at around $20 billion (€17.5 billion), would be responsible for FIFA's commercial rights like broadcast, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing contracts for its competitions, including the World Cup, but would sell a non-controling minority stake worth $4.2 billion to private equity investors.
The proposed investor consortium is expected to be led by "Thrive Eternal," a fund run by "Thrive Capital," in turn founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of US President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
"Nobody is selling football. This is not something FIFA would ever entertain," FIFA said in statement earlier on Friday, slamming "incorrect media reports" without issuing clarification and what precisely was wrongly reported, and insisting that it would proceed with its "consultation process" — with member associations obliged to make a decision by September 19.
"FIFA [member associations are] now being asked to believe that outside investors are needed to unlock greater value. I do not accept that proposition," said Cordeiro.
"Most troubling of all is the absence of answers to fundamental questions: Why this deal? Why now? What oversight exists? Who benefits? Was there a competitive process? What governance will be in place? What will investors ultimately gain, and at what cost to football?"
European football's governing body UEFA, which has been at loggerheads with FIFA and Infantino for years and criticized the global body throughout the recent World Cup over expensive ticket prices and the Folarin Balogun red card affair , had come out publicly in opposition to the plan within an hour of it first being reported by the Financial Times and Times on Tuesday.
"No UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership," UEFA said in a statement after a unanimous vote by its 55 member associations at a hastily convened emergency meeting on Thursday.
"The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product ... No part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale," the statement added.
Meanwhile, political criticism came from new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham , a keen football supporter and one of the first European leaders to criticize the FIFA plans earlier in the week,
"My view is strengthening [that] this was an outrageous suggestion," said Burnham on Friday. "The idea that it could even be brought forward, in my view, shows that the FIFA general secretary [Infantino] is the wrong man to lead the organization."
Shortly after, North America's soccer body CONCACAF also unanimously rejected the FIFA plan, though it stopped short of threatening a boycott by its 41 members.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) also issued a scathing letter to its 47 member associations and warned the FIFA…
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