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Fifa's plan to sell stakes in its major competitions - which includes the World Cup

Is World Cup sell-off plan a step too far by Infantino?

Miguel Delaney
Chief football writer for The Independent

I suppose one problem with this, with all this money, we don't know where it's going to go. The other issue here I suppose is with the Fifa structure, one vote per association, they already get revenues that are going to far supersede what they could possibly do with them.

UEFA

A statement from Uefa: "Uefa knows there is significant and growing opposition to Fifa's scheme. Fifa cannot continue to use our sport to enrich themselves. We can grow the game correctly."

Simon Stone
Chief football news reporter

European football's governing body Uefa and Prime Minister Andy Burnham have criticised proposals from Fifa to seek private investment in its competitions, including the World Cup.

Fifa - the sport's global governing body - said it intends to expand "football development funding" to more than $10bn (£7.5bn) and invite third-party investment in a new venture.

The story was first reported in the Financial Times and the Times, with the latter claiming the plans could potentially earn Fifa president Gianni Infantino tens of millions of pounds.

In a lengthy statement outlining the proposals, Fifa says it will "invite third parties to make minority, non-controlling investments" in a new subsidiary - Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) - to "consolidate" its commercial and event operations.

The plan still needs to be passed by a vote of Fifa's 211 member nations. But if approval is granted, Fifa says Thrive Eternal is expected to lead the proposed investor group for FFE.

Thrive is an American venture capital firm founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared.

Fifa sources have told BBC Sport there has been no discussion over Infantino, or anyone else, becoming chief executive of FFE.

In its statement, Fifa did say Infantino and the rest of the organisation "has a duty" to control the development of the project. Fifa has not said precisely what that means, or what the specific nature of Infantino's involvement will be.

As part of its pitch Fifa says all member associations will be able to access up to $20m (£15m) in "one-off capital" to fund development.

Based on this year's qualifying, these are the additional countries who would have made it into a 64-team World Cup 2026 (with their Fifa ranking at the start of the tournament in brackets):

AFC: Indonesia (118), Oman (79), United Arab Emirates (68).

Uefa: Denmark (21), Italy (12), Poland (36).

Concacaf: Honduras (65), Jamaica (71), Suriname (125).

Conmebol: Bolivia (77), Venezuela (49).

OFC: New Caledonia (151).

Africa: Burkina Faso (62), Cameroon (44), Gabon (86), Nigeria (26).

Six of those teams are from the top 50 of Fifa's world rankings - three from Europe, two from Africa and one from South America.

Dan Roan
BBC sports editor

It may be that Infantino's astonishing outburst reflects a genuine grievance he feels about some of the criticism Fifa has faced over its handling of the World Cup.

It appears he does not believe the governing body has received enough credit for organising a tournament that enjoyed record ticket sales, entertained many millions, and successfully delivered a huge security operation, despite the tense geopolitical landscape. It also arguably conveys a high degree of confidence in his position and chances of re-election next year, that he feels he can be so defiant.

But for many, turning on his critics in such a fashion, and portraying them as negative, biased and unfair 'haters', risks reinforcing an impression that Fifa is unable or unwilling to handle legitimate scrutiny, and is out of touch.

The reality is that a host of controversies made such scrutiny inevitable; the issues related to US visa policies, which undermined claims that it would be the most welcoming tournament ever. The unprecedented costs facing fans.

The outcry over Fifa's suspension of Folarin Balogun's ban after lobbying by US President Trump, leading to concerns over political interference (regardless of Fifa's denials). The introduction of innovations such as hydration breaks and a 27 minute long half-time show for the final. And the environmental impact of the biggest and longest World Cup ever.

Infantino held a media conference on the eve of the tournament - his first for three years - when he told his critics to "chill & relax". Maybe, if he had conducted another one after the event began or once it ended, he could have addressed some of the issues it raised sooner, and not responded in a way that many will see as further evidence of a siege mentality.

Image source, Getty Images

Mark Palios, former chief executive of the FA, on whether Uefa can hold Fifa to account: "The sad thing is that nothing's changed [in ten years]. If we go back to when I was there, Fifa was in the position where the dominance of Uefa and the European clubs was being challenged and that was another reason why Sepp Blatter was very popular with the smaller nations.

"You have that bias an do think there's still a bit there. The thing that Uefa has is the ability to veto the World Cup. Whether they go as far and take that nuclear option, I don't know. But if they said 'we are not going', three of the top four nations in Fifa rankings are European. If suddenly the big nations like Spain, France, England, Germany, Portugal were not going to go to the World Cup, then the next World Cup will be a financial disaster.

"That's where I think the pressure will come from Uefa."

Elizabeth Botcherby
BBC Sport

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has told critics to "meditate, pray or watch a football match" instead of "spreading hate and false rumours" about his leadership, the governing body and the World Cup.

In a 15-slide post on his personal Instagram account - reposted to Fifa's eight million followers - Infantino addressed "those behind their pens and papers, behind their screens" to affirm his belief that, while they were "busy planting seeds of hate", Fifa was delivering the "greatest event on earth".

He said the World Cup "celebrated humanity at its best", adding that the 2026 tournament had "100% safety and security, only joy and happiness".

Infantino downplayed several of the tournament's high-profile controversies and hailed the involvement of Iran, who featured at the World Cup despite their ongoing conflict with co-hosts the United States, as a success.

He said Fifa "worked tirelessly to unite two countries at war", with Iran entering the country "without incident or conflict".

His comments are in stark contradiction to those of Iran's head coach Amir Ghalenoei, who said his team were the "most oppressed" at the World Cup.

Image source, Getty Images

Former chief executive at the FA, Mark Palios, tells 5 Live: "All sports are suffering from a globalisation and a commercialisation of elite sports. If you look at rugby, guys are going to play in France and turn down the opportunity to play for England, in cricket you've got the IPL, they'll take IPL contracts but they won't play for England.

"The people that win out in terms of globalisation are the ones who own the rights the competition, so that is Fifa with their competitions, and the elite sportspeople. There's just no difference here if we allowed this to continue. What happens then is the balance, the real danger that if this crosses the line as Uefa have said, the ideal of sport gets suffocated by the raison d'etre of business."

Simon Stone
Chief football news reporter

Image source, Getty Images

One senior source within the English game told BBC Sport the threat posed by Fifa's plan is one of the biggest the game has faced and is on a par with the European Super League plan, which created controversy in 2021 and was scrapped within 48 hours.

It seems unlikely Fifa will back down in the same manner.

Fifa said its plan is to extend global development funding to $10bn (£7.5bn). It is also planning to offer each of the 211 member associations the opportunity to access up to $20m (£15m) in one-off capital.

This latest escalation extends a difficult relationship between Fifa and Uefa, which responded angrily to attempts to hold the World Cup every two years when the idea was floated by former Arsenal manager and Fifa's current chief of global football development Arsene Wenger in 2021.

Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin boycotted the World Cup final this month in protest at a number of controversial moves, including US President Donald Trump stepping in to help turn USA forward Folarin Balogun's one-match ban into a suspended ban, allowing him to play in the last-16 encounter with Belgium.

Former Fifa governance committee chair Miguel Maduro, speaking to 5 Live about Uefa's stance: "On one hand, I'm happy that Uefa is taking the right stance and I think they are absolutely correct in pointing out how shameful it is what is happening, what Infantino intends to do. On the other hand, Uefa itself is plagued by governance problems. It shares some of the problems that Infantino and Fifa have.

"As we have seen with the Super League, we don’t know the extent. Uefa took the right position in the Super League, but that also led to Uefa consolidating its relationship with the elite clubs in Europe, and what we see now is that Uefa competitions themselves are very close to what we will describe as 'super leagues'.

"I hope that Uefa are doing this for the right reasons and not because it wants to protect its own commercial interests and the commercial interests of its competitions.

"That’s what I would hope for, and that's particularly what I would hope politicians in Europe make sure is the case: that if they support Uefa, they support Uefa at the same time that they help reform Uefa because Uefa itself, what we’ve seen is a decrease in competitive balance through the way those competitions have been organised by Uefa and the close relationship between Uefa and the wealthier elite clubs in Europe."

Dale Johnson
Football issues correspondent

When Gianni Infantino was first elected in 2016, part of his manifesto was to increase the size of the World Cup from 32 teams to 40.

In less than a year, that rose to 48 and was approved by the Fifa council, effective from the 2026 finals.

Since then, speculation has never gone away that Fifa would like to go further and faster.

Going up to 48 teams for the 2022 finals was discussed, but it was accepted that Qatar would not be able to host a tournament of that size on its own.

And this is the issue – the bigger the World Cup becomes, the more challenging it is to host.

This year it is in three countries across a vast area. In 2030, matches will be played in six countries – Morocco, Portugal, Spain, plus Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay as centenary hosts.

Just how Saudi Arabia would be able to cope with a 64-team tournament, featuring 128 games, in 2034 is unknown.

Yet it is a great vote winner for Infantino on two counts.

Firstly, it gives more countries the chance to play at a World Cup. Indeed, a 64-team World Cup would see almost a third of the 211 Fifa-affiliated countries qualify.

A bigger World Cup also means more revenue to be distributed to the member associations.

Image source, Getty Images

The Football Association of Wales has released a short statement in response to Fifa's proposals:

"The Football Association of Wales (FAW) has not yet received any substantial details from Fifa concerning the reported proposals.

"Consequently, the FAW is concerned that such matters have become public prior to being shared with Fifa's Member Associations.

"We await receipt of Fifa's full proposal before commenting further on this matter."