FIFA plan for Kushner-backed $20 billion operation to run World Cup meets fury from Europe’s UEFA

FI­FA Pres­i­dent Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no’s plan to cre­ate a $20 bil­lion com­pa­ny run­ning the World Cup with pri­vate in­vestors in­clud­ing the Kush­n­er fam­i­ly was an­nounced Tues­day — and im­me­di­ate­ly at­tacked by Eu­ro­pean soc­cer body UE­FA.

“It is not FI­FA’s to sell,” UE­FA said in a state­ment. “None of us are the own­ers of foot­ball.”

In­fan­ti­no’s plans to form a com­mer­cial sub­sidiary, which would be called FI­FA For­ward En­ter­prise (FFE), run­ning com­pe­ti­tions like the World Cup and Club World Cup was first re­port­ed by The Times of Lon­don.

FI­FA said in a state­ment FFE would raise up to $4.2 bil­lion lat­er this year to help fund de­vel­op­ment pro­grams “based on an ini­tial eq­ui­ty val­u­a­tion of $20 bil­lion by care­ful­ly se­lect­ing long-term in­vestors who will pur­chase mi­nor­i­ty, non-con­trol­ling in­ter­ests.”

FI­FA is work­ing with J.P. Mor­gan while in­tend­ed in­vestors in­clude Thrive Eter­nal launched by Joshua Kush­n­er, whose broth­er Jared Kush­n­er is a son-in-law of U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

The men’s World Cup that fin­ished this month on­ly deep­ened the po­lit­i­cal and per­son­al ties be­tween Trump and In­fan­ti­no, and fu­elled con­cerns about those ties in­clud­ing from UE­FA.

“The soul and gov­er­nance of foot­ball are not as­sets to trade — es­pe­cial­ly with ze­ro trans­paren­cy as to who gains fi­nan­cial­ly,” UE­FA said Tues­day, re­spond­ing to the re­ports of sell­ing stakes in FI­FA com­pe­ti­tions.

FI­FA is cur­rent­ly a Swiss-based not-for-prof­it as­so­ci­a­tion of its 211 na­tion­al mem­ber fed­er­a­tions world­wide.

Those mem­bers must ap­prove any plan and would get the chance “to ac­cess up to $20 mil­lion in one-off cap­i­tal,” FI­FA said.

“This is about the de­moc­ra­ti­za­tion of foot­ball world­wide,” In­fan­ti­no said in a FI­FA state­ment, which added that “a con­sul­ta­tion process has be­gun.”

UE­FA, how­ev­er, said it took re­ports of the project “ex­treme­ly se­ri­ous­ly. So should every na­tion­al Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion.”

“This cross­es a line that foot­ball’s gov­ern­ing in­sti­tu­tions should nev­er cross,” said UE­FA, which com­pris­es 55 of the FI­FA mem­bers.

FI­FA’s $20M of­fer to mem­ber fed­er­a­tions

The out­line of Tues­day’s sur­prise an­nounce­ment was, FI­FA said, de­tailed by In­fan­ti­no to mem­bers who met in Man­hat­tan on Ju­ly 18 ahead of the World Cup fi­nal. There, In­fan­ti­no promised to “un­leash the com­mer­cial po­ten­tial and op­por­tu­ni­ty that FI­FA has.”

FI­FA’s state­ment Tues­day about its pro­posed project led on how much mon­ey each of its 211 mem­bers could get through 2038 in the “FI­FA Fast-For­ward Pro­gram.”

In­stead of the cur­rent­ly promised $8 mil­lion each in de­vel­op­ment funds through the 2027-30 World Cup com­mer­cial cy­cle, it would be $20 mil­lion, then $22 mil­lion and $24 mil­lion in the fol­low­ing cy­cles.

FI­FA banked record World Cup in­come of about $12 bil­lion from the 2026 tour­na­ment which had un­prece­dent­ed high prices for tick­ets and hos­pi­tal­i­ty across the U.S., Cana­da and Mex­i­co. It al­ready was un­clear how that mon­ey could be matched from Spain, Por­tu­gal and Mo­roc­co co-host­ing the 2030 men’s edi­tion.

Mem­ber fed­er­a­tions could choose if they want­ed to take part in the new fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties, FI­FA said.

“FI­FA would re­tain sole con­trol of FFE and ex­clu­sive au­thor­i­ty over foot­ball gov­er­nance, com­pe­ti­tions, match cal­en­dar, and all reg­u­la­to­ry and sport­ing de­ci­sions,” the soc­cer body said.

FI­FA’s in­tegri­ty stan­dards were called in­to ques­tion dur­ing the World Cup, in­clud­ing by team coach­es, Nor­way’s soc­cer fed­er­a­tion and a top Eu­ro­pean pub­lic body, the Coun­cil of Eu­rope.

FI­FA’s pre­vi­ous at­tempt to pri­va­tize as­sets

The project an­nounced Tues­day is the sec­ond time in In­fan­ti­no’s in­creas­ing­ly con­tro­ver­sial 11-year pres­i­den­cy he has tried to push through a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar deal with pri­vate back­ers.

In 2018, In­fan­ti­no pro­posed a se­cre­tive $25 bil­lion of­fer over 12 years with Soft­Bank of Japan to cre­ate new glob­al com­pe­ti­tions, in­clud­ing an ex­pand­ed men’s Club World Cup, seem­ing­ly backed by Sau­di Ara­bi­an mon­ey.

That ul­ti­mate­ly failed af­ter meet­ing fierce re­sis­tance from UE­FA, which saw threats to its prize as­sets: the Cham­pi­ons League and the Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­onship.

In­fan­ti­no still built clos­er ties to Sau­di soc­cer and the king­dom’s Crown Prince Mo­hammed Bin Salman. Sau­di Ara­bia will host the 2034 World Cup and large­ly fund­ed the re­vamped men’s Club World Cup host­ed in the U.S. last year.

In­fan­ti­no’s fu­ture?

The fi­nan­cial suc­cess of the just-end­ed World Cup has looked like­ly to en­sure In­fan­ti­no is re-elect­ed next year un­op­posed for a fourth and fi­nal term in of­fice through 2031.

At his re-elec­tion by ac­claim in 2023 in Rwan­da, In­fan­ti­no sug­gest­ed any CEO de­liv­er­ing sim­i­lar fi­nan­cial re­sults would be kept in the job for­ev­er.

Spec­u­la­tion has swirled for years In­fan­ti­no might want a dif­fer­ent glob­al role in soc­cer be­yond his FI­FA pres­i­den­cy, which is due to end when he is 61.

The Times re­port­ed Tues­day that a CEO-like com­mis­sion­er role of the new FFE op­er­a­tion could be cre­at­ed for In­fan­ti­no.

“This has nev­er been dis­cussed,” FI­FA said in a state­ment Tues­day. “How­ev­er, the FI­FA pres­i­dent and the FI­FA ad­min­is­tra­tion will and must have lead­ing roles in this en­ti­ty — if ap­proved.”

There was no timetable sug­gest­ed Tues­day for de­bate and de­ci­sions by FI­FA, its rul­ing Coun­cil chaired by In­fan­ti­no, and the 211 mem­bers.

FI­FA is sched­uled to hold an on­line con­gress on Nov. 23 to con­firm hosts of the Women’s World Cup edi­tions in 2031 and 2035. — GENE­VA (AP)

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Sto­ry by GRA­HAM DUN­BAR | As­so­ci­at­ed Press