Andy Burnham spoke for millions of football supporters when he declared that the World Cup is not a product, but the greatest competition in world sport, and was never anyone's to sell.UEFA was equally furious, warning that the soul and governance of football are not assets to trade, and that it is not FIFA's to sell. Both are right. Yet Gianni Infantino seems determined to flog a slice of the World Cup as though it were an inherited timeshare apartment he cannot wait to cash in.FIFA wants to place the commercial operations of its major competitions within a new £15billion company and sell up to 21 per cent of it to private investors. The sale could raise £3.2billion, with each of FIFA's 211 associations offered a stake worth about £15million. Infantino is asking national federations for permission to carve up their shared inheritance while waving a very large cheque under their noses. He calls it a game-changing opportunity. Supporters may recognise it as a sell-out wearing shin pads.‌There was once a line between earning from the World Cup and selling ownership of the machine that runs it. Infantino now wants to cross that line, paint over it, and charge a sponsor for the brush.He insists FIFA would stay in control. The last World Cup showed what that control looks like: football's first full encounter with the American sporting machine, where every pause needs a sponsor. Hydration breaks stopped matches midway through each half, regardless of the temperature, giving FIFA six convenient minutes to sell cars, beer and insurance.Meanwhile, the first World Cup final half-time show tried to turn the greatest match in sport into the Super Bowl with fewer helmets.Once corporate America gets involved, no sacred cow stays safe from becoming a burger to a sponsor. Those breaks and that half-time circus now look less like mistakes than a pitch to investors, proof of how much more can be squeezed from the World Cup. This is not commercial progress. It is the slow conversion of the greatest competition in sport into a branded content platform with some football fitted between the adverts.‌The secrecy makes it worse. UEFA said the proposal had been developed with zero transparency, and Asian and North American bodies said they had not been consulted either. Infantino plotted the future of the game behind the backs of the organisations expected to approve it, despite being merely its custodian. He did not create the World Cup, score its goals or build its history, yet behaves as though he owns the freehold, the car park and the mineral rights too.The proposed investor deepens the unease. The group expected to lead the deal is Thrive Eternal, established by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser. The brothers run separate businesses, and there is no suggestion either has acted unlawfully, but whenever billions start circling Trump's world, a Kushner turns up with the punctuality of a commercial break.That deepens concerns about Infantino's embarrassingly submissive relationship with Trump, a man he has fluttered around for years like a maître d' hoping for a five-star review. FIFA rented offices in Trump Tower, and Infantino invented a peace prize and handed the first one to Trump, rather like awarding a vegetarian medal to a crocodile.At the final, the pair emerged together for the trophy presentation to boos, the US president lingering among the players as though he had scored the winning goal himself, Infantino beaming beside him like a man allowed to carry his hero’s coat. Trump craves trophies and reflected glory, and Infantino has supplied the lot, turning FIFA into another gold-trimmed prop in the President's personal pageant. Now, FIFA is preparing a deal involving a company built by the brother of Trump's son-in-law.‌No wonder US Congressman Jamie Raskin, the leading Democrat on the House judiciary committee, has demanded documents on gifts and payments involving Trump, calling for Infantino to face Congress and accusing FIFA of becoming Trump's favourite racketeering enterprise in world sports.Infantino should answer every question. Instead, he has accused critics of spreading hate and false narratives, the familiar refuge of powerful men who treat scrutiny as personal cruelty.Football must stop this deal. Once part of the World Cup is sold, investors will demand more games, more interruptions and higher ticket prices. Infantino promised to clean up FIFA. He risks being remembered instead as the man who Americanised the World Cup, polished Trump's trophies, and tried to sell football's crown jewels while supporters were still leaving the stadium.‌Infantino deserves the sack for treating the World Cup like his personal cash cow, yet he clings on because smaller nations, kept sweet by FIFA's development funding, continue to back him to the hilt.The World Cup was entrusted to him. It was never his to put on the market.