FIFA cannot sell the World Cup
Football is the king of sports: the one that moves the most masses –digital and in-person– and the most passions. Sporting and national passions. The one that generates the most business, with fabulous television rights. The one that involves the most politics. We saw this in this World Cup, with the obscene interference of the American president Donald Trump, who has counted on the undisguised complicity of Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, a position he has held for a decade and in which he wishes to perpetuate himself.
The institutional world of sport is not characterized precisely by its transparency or its democratic nature. It is an opaque world, which functions on the basis of favors, unconfessable influences, and millionaire contracts. The institutional elite of international football is a society of millionaires in which what matters is generating more spectacle to generate more money. Sporting values? Money to promote football among children in poverty? Has anyone heard any message with any solidarity cause during this World Cup, even if only to launder the business?
Infantino is, without a doubt, a genius of football-business. With FIFA under his control, he manages stratospheric amounts, which he now wants to continue increasing by allowing private investors into the World Cup and the Club World Cup. For this entry of private capital, he has the international bank JP Morgan and Thrive Eternal, a long-term investment company created by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump. FIFA's budget for this year 2026 is $8.911 billion. And the World Cup has generated revenues of $15 billion, double that of the 2022 event and $5 billion more than initially projected. If 32 teams participated in the 2022 World Cup and 48 have done so in this 2026 one, in the next one in 2030 – which will be held in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco – the figure is intended to rise to 64. More business. More cake to share. And the one who shares is Infantino. It will not be easy to stop him, neither in his re-election nor in his business delusions.
But the privatization it proposes is a dangerous drift that means crossing a red line. And more so with the travel companions it has. As UEFA says, neither Infantino nor any senior federative leader owns national team football. FIFA cannot sell it, "especially when there is no transparency about who benefits economically from it," UEFA has stated. The new British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has also been forceful: "The World Cup is not a product. It is the biggest competition in world sport, and it has never been anyone's to sell."
The 55 federations that make up UEFA will meet urgently this week to organize opposition to the plans of the FIFA president, who in turn has sent a letter to the 211 federations that comprise it, promising them a shower of millions. Who will take control of world football? Beside whom will the big television channels and the big sports brands position themselves? In this new football battle, the world of sport is playing for more than just money.