Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell a significant stake in the commercial rights to Fifa’s tournaments has opened a fresh argument over how far football’s governing body should go in turning the World Cup into a private investment asset.
Fifa has announced that it wants to create Fifa Forward Enterprise, a new entity that would handle the commercial rights to the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup. The proposal would see those rights marketed to private investors, with the plan subject to approval by a majority of member associations.
Infantino has framed the move as a way of creating “the commercial side of the game [operating] as a focused, dedicated business, with its value shared more and better all around the world”.
Why the backlash has been immediate
The reaction from Uefa was swift and severe. Relations between Uefa and Fifa are already at an all-time low, and this latest announcement has only deepened the split.
Uefa accused Fifa of “attempting to sell the soul of football” and said the plan “crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross”. It added: “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade – especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not Fifa’s to sell.”
That is strong language, but it reflects a deeper concern. This is not just about a funding model or a business structure. It is about who gets to control the commercial future of the game’s biggest tournaments.
The value on the table
Fifa is understood to be assigning a value of $20bn to the venture, with more than $10bn potentially redistributed to its 211 member associations. That makes this far more than a symbolic change.
It is a major commercial proposal with global implications, and one that would alter the relationship between Fifa, its members and outside investors. Fifa has said the plan would help generate value more broadly across the game, but critics will argue that once stakes in the World Cup are sold, the principle is hard to contain.
There is also context here. In 2018, Infantino agreed a deal in principle with Japanese bank SoftBank to provide private capital to fund Fifa. This month, reported that Fifa’s revenues for the World Cup would exceed $15bn. This month, Uefa also said Fifa undermined the integrity of the World Cup when it intervened to overturn the USA striker Falorin Balogun’s red card after President Trump had personally called on Infantino to do so.
So this latest move does not arrive in isolation. It lands in the middle of existing tensions, and it will now be tested by member associations who must decide whether the commercial upside is worth the institutional risk.
For Infantino, the ambition is obvious: create a dedicated business around the game’s biggest rights and raise vast sums in the process. For Uefa, the concern is equally clear: once the World Cup is treated like an asset to be sold, football’s governing logic changes in a way that may be difficult to reverse.
