Uefa boycott hits women's World Cups first
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- Uefa's 55 member associations voted Thursday to boycott all Fifa competitions until the governing body drops Infantino's privatization proposals, with the boycott first affecting the Under-20 Women's World Cup in Poland starting 5 September.
- Fifa's proposed commercial subsidiary, Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE), would allow external investors to buy minority, non-controlling stakes in its tournaments, with Infantino setting a 19 September deadline for federations to accept the plans.
- Concacaf's 41 member associations "rejected" the proposal and the Asian Football Confederation said it "stands in solidarity" with Europe and North/Central America and the Caribbean, widening the revolt beyond Uefa.
- Carlos Cordeiro, a senior adviser to Infantino, resigned from his position, calling the proposal "a bad deal for football" that would "mortgage football's future."
- A JP Morgan 25-page document projects increased payouts of 24m euros per member association for the 2035-2039 cycle but contains no mention of the women's game, according to the source.
- England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have October qualifiers for next summer's Women's World Cup in Brazil, with Asante warning the impact "could be huge" if unresolved in time.
- Thrive Eternal, the American VC firm founded by Joshua Kushner (brother of Jared Kushner), is expected to lead the proposed FFE investor group.
Why it matters: The boycott now unites three of Fifa's six confederations against Infantino's 19 September deadline, and women's tournaments — not men's — are the first fixtures slated to disappear. If unresolved by October, England's qualifying path to the 2026 Women's World Cup in Brazil faces direct disruption, and even Fifa's own senior adviser Cordeiro has publicly abandoned the plan.
