Sources: UEFA weighs WC boycott over FIFA plan
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- UEFA is accelerating efforts to convene an emergency virtual meeting of its 55 member associations before week's end to discuss options including a potential World Cup boycott in response to FIFA's $20 billion equity-sale proposal.
- FIFA president Gianni Infantino unveiled the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), a new body that would take control of commercial and event operations including future men's and women's World Cups, with J.P. Morgan advising and Thrive Eternal — Joshua Kushner's firm — among the potential outside investors.
- UEFA issued a swift condemnation declaring the sport "isn't FIFA's to sell," warning the proposal "crosses a line that football's governing institutions should never cross" and that "the soul and governance of football are not assets to trade."
- FIFA says the FFE would raise up to $4.2 billion initially and boost each of its 211 member federations' development funding from the current $8 million per cycle to $20 million, then $22 million and $24 million in subsequent cycles through 2038.
- FIFA banked a record $12 billion from the 2026 World Cup across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, while revenue prospects for the 2030 edition co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco were already uncertain before the FFE plan surfaced.
- FIFA abandoned a 2021 proposal to hold the World Cup every two years under threat of UEFA boycott, and sources say the same deterrent is expected to be deployed against the current FFE plan.
- Andy Burnham, identified in the report as U.K. Prime Minister, became the first prominent world leader to condemn the proposal, posting on X that "Football does not belong to investors."
Why it matters: UEFA's 55 associations could replicate their 2021 playbook — when a boycott threat killed FIFA's biennial World Cup plan — to derail the $20 billion FFE proposal and block Infantino's new revenue engine. The Thrive Eternal link to Jared Kushner and Trump hands European critics a politically charged target.
