FIFA president Gianni Infantino appears to have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
A month after the final of 2026 World Cup, which earned FIFA a record $15 billion in revenues, Infantino is fighting to keep his job. His controversial plan to sell off a stake in the World Cup to a group of private investors led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, sparked a global backlash that shows no signs of abetting. The past week, soccer legends, sports authorities and even world leaders have called for Infantino to resign.
“Infantino must go,” wrote Portuguese soccer legend Luis Figo in an op-ed for the Daily Mail. “The Infantino era is over,” added Javier Tebas, president of Italy’s La Liga, an interview with French newspaper Le Monde. “It should be fatal,” said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, on Infantino’s misstep with the sell-off plans. “Certainly I don’t have confidence in Mr. Infantino.”
The pile on has continued despite Infantino dropping his plan, officially ditching the proposal on July 31. The deal would have seen FIFA, a 96-year-old nonprofit, spin off its commercial interests into a new division, FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE). Kushner’s private equity group Thrive Capital would then buy a 21 percent stake in FFE for $4.2 billion. FIFA had argued the arrangement would raise billions to fund global sports development.
