The selections of Europe, out of the World Cup: UEFA agrees to an unprecedented boycott

BarcelonaThe 55 UEFA member countries have voted in favor of supporting a boycott of the World Cup in protest against FIFA's proposal to sell stakes to private investors. The announcement comes after the member federations of the European football governing body met remotely. In this way, next year's Women's World Cup, which is to be held in Brazil, and the men's, which should be held in 2030 jointly between Spain, Portugal and Morocco, would not include teams from Europe.

Since this Tuesday, UEFA has begun to consider implementing a boycott of FIFA competitions in response to its Secretary General, Gianni Infantino's, plan to "release a percentage of the World Cup and Club World Cup to the market" to attract private investment to generate more revenue. When Infantino's plans became known following a publication in the British newspaper The Times and, consequently, FIFA issued a statement outlining its president's intentions, the European football governing body was quick to express its rejection. "A red line has been crossed," they warned.

This Thursday, they have materialized their threat. "UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions. UEFA and its 55 member associations stand united. We unanimously and unequivocally reject FIFA's proposal to transfer ownership stakes in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors," the organization stated in a new release. "The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product. It is one of football's most important sporting legacies. It has been forged over generations thanks to the players, national teams, and fans from all continents. No part of this heritage should ever be ceded to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale," they resolved.

Infantino defends himself against the avalanche of criticism

From Wednesday to Thursday dawn, hours before the UEFA decision to boycott FIFA competitions became known, Infantino had released a video of almost five minutes in which he assured that the project of selling part of the World Cup and the Club World Cup "is not an obligation, but an opportunity".

"The FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE, is actually a proposal, an offer. It is part of a democratic process – a consultation process – and, above all, it is an opportunity, not an obligation. As I have already said, it starts the consultation process. If, and only if, it is approved by the majority of our 211 member associations and by the FIFA Council, it would become a subsidiary owned and controlled by FIFA, which would consolidate FIFA's commercial and event operations. Its function would be to market and organize all FIFA-owned competitions, along with sponsorship, broadcasting, licensing, and new projects for the benefit of FIFA's 211 member associations, and it would also release commercial value that had not previously been leveraged," explained the FIFA president.

What does Infantino promise the federations?

Infantino's privatization initiative plans to allocate approximately 20 million dollars (around 17,600,000 euros) per federation in exceptional funding for special projects of the new FIFA Fast-Forward program (FFFP), as well as an additional 20 million dollars through the Forward program for the 2027-2030 period (currently budgeted at around 7 million euros).

With the war already open with UEFA, Infantino sent a letter this Wednesday to the 211 member federations outlining how he would distribute this new chunk of millions. According to this letter, each federation would receive 20 million dollars (around 17,600,000 euros) starting from the cycle that will begin on January 1, 2027. Furthermore, these amounts will increase in each cycle. Thus, they will be 22 million dollars for the 2031-2034 period, 24 million for 2035-2038, and so on.

Additionally, each member federation that sells a stake of its quota to external investors would receive an additional 20 million dollars starting January 1, 2027. This would mean an injection of up to 40 million dollars for state football associations as early as 2027, and over a 12-year cycle (which includes the celebration of three World Cups), the final figure would approach a total injection of approximately 90 million dollars, according to FIFA's explanation in the letter. In this way, Infantino wants to convince the federations – who, before the threat of UEFA's boycott, had until September 19th to evaluate the initiative – to vote for his proposal and, of course, to be re-elected as president of the institution.

Before sending the letter, Infantino had already received the outright rejection from UEFA and public figures such as British Prime Minister Andy Burnham or European Commissioner for Sport, Glenn Micallef. As the governing body of European football, they were not at all pleased with FIFA's intention to expand funding to exceed $10 billion through the privatization of competitions to private investors.