New York’s prestigious-yet-secretive venture firm Thrive Capital has been hauled into the center of a messy drama that could result in criminal charges against Gianni Infantino, the controversial president of global soccer organization FIFA.
And now Thrive’s prominent founder, Josh Kushner, has finally spoken up about the deal in a statement saying that he still thinks the original idea was a sound one, and would have been good for global soccer. But, he says, “had we known what this would devolve into, we would not have gotten involved.” (Full statement below.)
The scandal involves Infantino’s failed plan to create a new corporate entity called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) that would have owned some of the commercial aspects of FIFA competitions like the World Cup, including revenues from TV rights and ticket sales.
This entity would have been fully owned by FIFA’s member associations (aka teams) but all MAs would have had the option to sell some of their shares as secondary sales to private investors. The MAs would have had to vote to create the organization and then agree to sell their own shares to private investors.
FIFA engaged JPMorgan to drum up potential investors for the proposed company. That’s where Thrive came in.
