GENEVA (AP) — Asia’s soccer body joined opposition to Gianni Infantino’s plan for private investors to buy stakes in the World Cup and said Friday FIFA must urgently review its management style.The Asian Football Confederation said it “stands in solidarity” with European body UEFA and North America’s CONCACAF which on Thursday respectively threatened a boycott of FIFA competitions and rejected Infantino’s offer of one-off $20 million payments to each member federation.“Football should never have been placed in such a position,” said the Asian soccer body, which counts 46 of FIFA’s 211 member federations that Infantino gave a Sept. 19 deadline to accept the $20 million offer.Infantino has proposed spinning off FIFA’s commercial businesses — including World Cups and Club World Cups for men and women — into a $20 billion subsidiary with 20% owned by private investors.
The “anchor investor,” described by FIFA, is a New York-based investment firm created by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. “(T)he proposed (FIFA Forward Enterprise) cannot realistically achieve the necessary broad consensus and unity required to move forward” and must be reconsidered, the AFC said.The statement did not name Infantino yet criticized FIFA for problems beyond the content of the private equity plan plus failing to consult about a secretive proposal that was revealed Tuesday in media reports.
