Uefa says Fifa plan for private investment in World Cup 'crosses line'
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- FIFA announced plans to create Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE), a new subsidiary offering "minority, non-controlling investments" to third parties, aiming to expand football development funding to more than $10bn (£7.5bn).
- Thrive Eternal, an American venture capital firm founded by Joshua Kushner — brother of US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner — is expected to lead the proposed investor group for FFE.
- Gianni Infantino stands to personally earn tens of millions of pounds from the plans, according to The Times.
- UEFA issued a strongly-worded statement saying the proposal "crosses a line that football's governing institutions should never cross" and criticized "zero transparency as to who gains financially."
- UEFA warned the proposal raises the potential for further expansion of FIFA competitions — in size and frequency — which it said could threaten UEFA's own lucrative competitions.
- All 211 FIFA member nations could vote on the proposal at the FIFA Congress in Morocco in March, following expected discussion at the autumn FIFA Council meeting.
Why it matters: UEFA's "crosses a line" rebuke — and its stated concern that FIFA competition expansion would threaten UEFA's own lucrative competitions — turns this into a structural fight over who controls football's commercial future, with the 211-nation FIFA Congress vote in Morocco next March as the decisive deadline.
