Europe is ready to boycott World Cups if FIFA moves forward with its proposal for creating a commercial entity.
The 55 national federations of the European continental body voted unanimously at an emergency meeting Thursday to boycott all FIFA tournaments if the global governing body moves forward with its plan. The Women’s World Cup is next summer in Brazil, but FIFA also conducts other tournaments.
Poland is hosting the U-20 Women’s World Cup in September.
“As a result of today’s discussion, no UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership,” the confederation said in a statement Thursday.
FIFA announced earlier this week a plan to commercialize the World Cup and its other tournaments, consolidating several money-making parts of its business into an entity called FIFA Forward Enterprise, and selling off a roughly 20% stake of that company to outside investors. The lead investor, Thrive Eternal, is run by Joshua Kushner, whose older brother, Jared, is U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and whose father, Charles, is Trump’s ambassador to France and Monaco.
