Is the World Cup Being Sold? FIFA’s $20 Billion Plan Sparks a New Crisis with UEFA
FIFA is considering placing the commercial rights and operations of all its tournaments, including the World Cup, into a new company and opening a minority stake to private investors. UEFA says the competition’s value is not FIFA’s to sell, setting the stage for a new power struggle in world football.
Is the World Cup Being Sold? FIFA’s $20 Billion Plan Sparks a New Crisis with UEFA
Only days after the 2026 FIFA World Cup came to an end, football’s attention has already shifted away from events on the pitch and back towards questions of governance, money and power.
FIFA is considering bringing the broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing rights for all its tournaments — including the World Cup — together with their operational management under a newly created company. The proposed entity, to be called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), could then sell a minority stake to private investors.
FIFA is presenting the project as an unprecedented opportunity to fund football development around the world. UEFA, however, argues that it crosses a dangerous line, extending beyond commercial rights into the governance and future of the game itself.
So, is the World Cup really being sold? Not yet. But for the first time, part of the commercial value generated by the tournament could be transferred into a corporate structure in which private investors would hold a direct stake.
What is the FIFA Forward Enterprise plan?
Under the proposal announced by FIFA on 28 July, FFE would be a subsidiary owned and controlled by FIFA. The commercial rights and event operations connected to all FIFA tournaments would be brought together under the new company.
The key figures behind the plan are as follows:
FFE would receive an initial valuation of $20 billion.
A non-controlling minority stake of up to 20% could be offered to outside investors.
FIFA aims to raise as much as $4.2 billion through the sale.
Broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing would form part of the company’s commercial portfolio.
FIFA tournaments across the men’s, women’s and youth game would fall within its scope.
FIFA has stressed that outside investors would hold only non-controlling minority stakes. Football governance, competition formats, the international match calendar and all sporting or regulatory decisions would remain entirely under FIFA’s authority. The organisation also points out that the investment would be made in a FIFA subsidiary rather than directly in FIFA itself. According to FIFA’s official statement, the project requires approval from a majority of its member associations as well as the FIFA Council before it can proceed.
FIFA is working with J.P. Morgan as its financial adviser. The proposed investor group is expected to be led by Thrive Eternal, founded by Joshua Kushner. The fact that Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, has also brought the political connections surrounding the proposal into the discussion alongside its commercial implications.
The major financial incentive offered to member associations
Gianni Infantino’s central argument is that the new model would allow the commercial success of the World Cup to be distributed more widely, particularly to smaller football nations with more limited revenues.
FIFA says FFE could help generate more than $10 billion for football development over the next four years. The money could be used for stadiums, national training centres, technical education, national teams, domestic competitions, grassroots football and the women’s game.
According to correspondence reportedly sent to FIFA’s member associations, a federation supporting the proposal could gain access to as much as $40 million in total funding from 2027 onwards. That figure would combine a one-off allocation of $20 million for special projects with a further $20 million in FIFA Forward funding for the 2027–2030 period.
Federations have reportedly been given until 19 September 2026 to make their decision, with the new funds potentially becoming available from 1 January 2027. If the plan does not secure the necessary support, the existing Forward 4.0 programme is expected to continue, providing approximately $10 million per federation during the next funding cycle. These details were not included in FIFA’s initial public announcement but emerged later through correspondence sent to member associations and obtained by the media. The letter reported by Sky Sports suggests that the financial incentive could become one of the most influential factors in the forthcoming vote.
Why is UEFA opposing the plan so strongly?
UEFA’s objection is not based solely on the involvement of private investment. European football’s governing body also sees the way the proposal was developed — without sufficient consultation or transparency — as a fundamental governance problem.
UEFA said the plan crossed a line football institutions should never cross, declaring: “The spirit and governance of football are not assets to be traded.”
UEFA’s position is that no one owns football and that FIFA therefore cannot treat the value created by the World Cup as property it is free to sell on its own terms. Its sharpest criticism concerns the lack of transparency over who the investors would be, what financial rights they would receive and who would ultimately benefit from the agreement.
The dispute marks a new stage in the already growing tension between FIFA and UEFA. During the tournament, UEFA described the suspension of US forward Folarin Balogun’s straight-red-card ban as damaging to the integrity of football after US President Donald Trump asked Infantino to have the incident reviewed. UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin also stayed away from the 2026 World Cup final following a series of disciplinary, refereeing and governance disputes. This earlier conflict, reported by Reuters, helps explain why the response to the FFE plan is being viewed as part of a wider institutional struggle rather than a reaction to a single commercial proposal.
FIFA’s willingness to discuss expanding the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams, together with its ambition to grow the Club World Cup, has further widened the philosophical divide between the two organisations.
The opposition extends beyond UEFA
A more serious problem for FIFA is that the criticism is not confined to Europe.
CONCACAF said it first learned about the plan through media reports and then through FIFA’s public statement, raising concerns about the lack of a proper decision-making process. The Asian Football Confederation also stressed that a project of this scale should be built on transparency, good governance and meaningful consultation.
The English Football Association said it had been completely unaware of the proposal and had not seen concrete details of its terms. French Football Federation President Philippe Diallo similarly argued that excluding member associations from the process raised serious questions about the future of the game.
Together, UEFA, CONCACAF and the AFC represent 143 FIFA members, illustrating the numerical strength of the bodies expressing concern. That does not mean all 143 associations will vote against the proposal; each national federation will make its own decision. Czech Football Association President David Trunda, for example, said more details were needed but became one of the few supportive voices, arguing that the plan could produce positive outcomes for grassroots football and infrastructure investment. The reactions compiled by Reuters point less towards a unified position across the football world than towards an expanding governance crisis.
Is the real issue control or commercial pressure?
FIFA’s strongest defence is straightforward: private investors would not control the company and would have no authority over sporting decisions.
The critics are asking a different question. Even without direct influence over the Laws of the Game or competition regulations, any investor would naturally expect a return on the capital committed. Increasing FFE’s value could create pressure for more matches, larger tournaments, higher ticket prices, new sponsorship inventory and events staged more frequently.
The debate is therefore not limited to who retains legal control. The central issue is how FIFA’s sporting decisions and FFE’s commercial objectives might become connected over time.
European Union Sports Commissioner Glenn Micallef has also warned that combining FIFA’s regulatory powers with the financial interests of private investors in the same structure could raise questions about independence and conflicts of interest. FIFA says outside investors would have no operational role, but those concerns are unlikely to disappear until the full terms of the agreement are disclosed. According to Reuters, CONCACAF and the AFC have also requested more information and more time to assess the legal, commercial and strategic consequences.
What could happen next?
1. FIFA could secure the required majority
FFE could be established if the proposal wins the support of more than half of FIFA’s 211 member associations and receives approval from the FIFA Council. For smaller and developing football nations that depend heavily on FIFA funding, access to as much as $40 million represents a powerful incentive.
Under this scenario, the debate would shift towards the selection of investors, the terms of the share sale, the distribution of revenues and the way FIFA’s promised control safeguards are written into the final contracts.
2. The plan could be delayed, reduced or rejected
Opposition from UEFA, CONCACAF, the AFC and major national associations could force FIFA into a longer consultation process or a more limited version of the proposal. The size of the stake, investor rights, the decision-making structure and transparency provisions could all be revised.
Infantino pursued another $25 billion private investment plan led by SoftBank in 2018, but the project did not go ahead following strong opposition from UEFA. Although the current proposal has a different structure, that earlier attempt shows why FIFA’s leadership cannot take majority support for granted. As reported by the Associated Press, this is the second major effort of the Infantino era to open FIFA assets to private capital.
3. A legal battle could begin
Reports suggest that UEFA is considering its legal options. As of 29 July, however, no lawsuit, formal filing or concrete legal strategy has been announced.
Any potential dispute could centre on the FIFA Statutes, the rights of member associations, the transfer of commercial assets into a subsidiary, directors’ responsibilities and conflict-of-interest provisions. Whether those questions develop into an actual legal case will depend on the detailed proposal and the approval process FIFA ultimately follows.
4. The threat of a boycott could be used as political leverage
There have been reports that some European federations have discussed severe responses, including a possible World Cup boycott. At this stage, however, neither UEFA nor any major national association has taken an official decision to withdraw.
For now, the possibility of a boycott should be understood as the strongest available bargaining tool to pressure FIFA into retreating or changing the plan. The sporting and commercial weight of European teams makes such a threat significant. But withdrawing from the World Cup would carry enormous consequences for federations, players, broadcasters and supporters, making it an extremely difficult option to implement.
The central question for the future of the World Cup
FIFA’s proposal brings a long-standing contradiction in global football back to the surface.
On one side is a model promising to distribute more of the World Cup’s multibillion-dollar revenues to a greater number of countries and invest that money in infrastructure, education, women’s football and the grassroots game. On the other is the risk that the future of football’s most valuable competition could become intertwined with the financial interests of private investors seeking a return.
That is why the debate is bigger than the question, “Is the World Cup being sold?” The real issue is who gets to define the limits of football’s commercial growth — and who will ultimately pay the price for it.
FFE has not yet been established, no shares have been sold and the proposal has not been approved. Yet the latest struggle between FIFA and UEFA has already become more than a dispute over a corporate structure. It is now a contest over how the World Cup should be governed, how often it should be played and whose interests it will serve in the future.
Editor’s note
This article is based on information published as of 29 July 2026. The FFE proposal remains subject to an ongoing approval and consultation process; its investor structure, final shareholding and contractual terms have not yet been confirmed.
