Gianni Infantino is promoting a plan to establish a subsidiary named FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to manage FIFA's entire commercial operations, including television rights, sponsorship, ticket sales and licensing for the World Cup as well as the Club World Cup.
According to the proposal, FIFA will sell part of FFE's shares to private investors with an initial valuation of about 20 billion USD. This deal is expected to bring in about 4.2 billion USD, serving FIFA's global football development program.
Although affirming that it still maintains absolute control over tournaments and all professional decisions, FIFA still faces a strong wave of opposition from many member organizations and federations.
According to the plan, member federations will receive significantly larger financial support. Each federation can immediately receive 20 million USD, before continuing to increase support levels in subsequent financial cycles. For many small football backgrounds, this is considered an important resource for infrastructure development and youth training.
Conversely, investment funds participating in the deal also expect to earn significant profits from the increasing commercial value of the World Cup. International media believes that after ending his FIFA President term in 2031, Infantino is likely to hold an important role in FFE.
One of the notable names appearing in the deal is Joshua Kushner, founder of the Thrive Eternal fund and Jared Kushner's younger brother - US President Donald Trump's son-in-law. Besides, there are Greg Maffei, former leader of Liberty Media, the unit that once owned Formula 1, along with the participation of JPMorgan and OpenEconomics in the investor search process.
This is not the first time Infantino has sought to mobilize private capital for FIFA tournaments. In 2018, he proposed a 25 billion USD cooperation plan with SoftBank to develop global tournaments, but the project failed after strong opposition from UEFA.
Many experts worry that the participation of investment funds in owning the World Cup exploitation rights will create pressure to maximize profits, leading to the risk of further expanding the scale of tournaments, increasing competition density and pushing ticket prices up.
The 2026 World Cup has just witnessed the first tournament with 48 participating teams, but FIFA has begun to consider the possibility of increasing it to 64 teams in the future. The Club World Cup is also said to be able to continue to expand the number of participating teams.
The increasingly dense schedule has long been a controversial issue. The FIFPro player association has repeatedly warned players that they no longer have enough rest time, while many stars like Kevin De Bruyne have publicly criticized FIFA and UEFA for prioritizing commercial interests over player health.
Infantino's plan has faced strong reactions from UEFA. President Aleksander Ceferin affirmed that football is not an asset for buying and selling and said that FIFA has no right to commercialize ownership of this sport.
Some opinions even compared FIFA's plan to a "nuclear bomb" to football and even "more dangerous than the European Super League". Meanwhile, La Liga President Javier Tebas also publicly criticized Infantino with harsh statements about the FIFA head's management.
