NWSL's Berman Backs Concacaf's Rejection of FIFA Privatization
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- Jessica Berman said the NWSL "wholeheartedly" supports Concacaf's rejection of FIFA president Gianni Infantino's FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, which would have bundled the men's and women's World Cups and Club World Cups and sold roughly 20% to private investors for about $4 billion.
- Gianni Infantino abandoned the FFE proposal within days after unified opposition from UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC; the plan's main backer was Thrive Eternal, a holding company led by venture capitalist Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law.
- U.S. Soccer CEO J.T. Batson said FIFA leadership will be discussed at the federation's September board meeting, two months before the November deadline for candidates to declare; Concacaf president Victor Montagliani is reportedly mulling a run.
- Berman flagged that the FFE's 25-page sales deck included no plans for the Women's World Cup or other women's competitions, calling investment in the women's game her second key criterion for any FIFA president after a balanced club-country relationship.
- The NWSL will pause its 2027 season during the Women's World Cup in Brazil and open that year on Feb. 11 in Los Angeles, days before the Super Bowl at nearby SoFi Stadium, as Berman identified the international match calendar as the league's "most important and active workstream" with the next cycle to be set within 12 to 18 months.
- NWSL attendance averaged 11,174 fans per match year-to-date — the second-highest in league history behind 2024's 11,249 — while the league's Summer of Soccer campaign generated roughly 40 million social impressions and triple-digit growth on Instagram and YouTube.
- The 2027 calendar will be further complicated as MLS begins a sprint season before flipping to a fall-to-spring schedule, creating overlapping scheduling uncertainty between the two U.S. leagues.
Why it matters: Berman's public alignment signals that the NWSL — the most-watched women's league in the U.S. — will be an active voice in the FIFA presidential race ahead of the November candidate deadline and September U.S. Soccer board meeting. The FFE proposal's omission of the women's game from its sales deck makes women's investment a concrete, testable benchmark for any candidate, giving Montagliani or rivals a clear line of attack against Infantino.
