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In the face of rampant backlash from national and player associations alike, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has reportedly put together a confidential presentation demonstrating how funding for his plan to sell off stakes of the World Cup could be completed by October.
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It was only on Tuesday, July 28 that FIFA publicly announced the proposal to create a subsidiary company-the FIFA Forward Enterprise, instantly valued at $20 billion-which would control the commercial interests of FIFA’s biggest men’s and women’s competitions, namely the World Cup and Club World Cup. The plan is to seek out investors to buy roughly 20% of these shares for the grand sum of $4.2 billion, which would then be spread between FIFA’s member associations.
Yet, according to these secret documents seen by Sky News, Infantino expects to have all the funding acquired by the end of October, barely three months after every association discovered this proposal desperately short of any detail through the media.
Infantino had already tried to speed the process along by handing a deadline of Sept. 19 to all associations. They can either sign up to this scheme and swiftly receive $40 million or turn it and that transformative revenue down.
Sky News add that, if the proposal wasn’t already financially attractive enough, the swollen windfall set to come not just this year but across the next 12 years, can be used to “attract top talent with incentive-driven compensation”-i.e., fund larger salaries.
‘Competition Enhancement’-Hints at FIFA’s Plans for News Funds
This confidential presentation reportedly offers some insight into what FIFA plans to do to ensure that they can actually afford to pay out $86 million to each of the 211 member associations over the next dozen years.
Many have predicted that mass expansion of tournaments will be the first port of call, a theory emboldened by the term “competition enhancement” being referenced in the material. There has already been growing talk of a 64-team men’s World Cup in 2030, while the 32-team Club World Cup had scarcely concluded before thoughts turned to whether it should be made even larger.
FIFA insist that the private investors-the first of which has already been confirmed to be Thrive Eternal, a venture capital firm run by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law-will have no controlling stake in operations and instead offer their “expertise.” As outlined in Infantino’s presentation, this “commercial optimization will unlock the next era of growth.”
There will be no shortage of alternative investors either, with Reuters quoting an unnamed source at J.P. Morgan-the bank working with FIFA to set up this project-who revealed that “demand is off the charts.”
‘Will Never Support’-Threat of Boycott Looms Large
FIFPRO Europe, the representative organization for professional soccer players in the country, released a damning statement declaring that it “cannot-and will never-support such a model.”
As ever, the chief concern for the organization is player welfare in the exceedingly likely possibility that future club and international World Cups are not only expanded but multiplied, with the suggestion of biennial tournaments, rather than once every four years, a long-standing point of interest for Infantino. Players are already exhausted by the match calendar as it exists now.
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Beyond the threat of what is to come, FIFPRO ram home a point made by so many of the people impacted by these dramatic decisions: there has been no communication. “It is particularly troubling that a project of this magnitude has been developed largely behind closed doors and brought close to agreement without any meaningful engagement with those most affected.”
UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, has demonstrated similar dismay and confirmed that a virtual meeting will be held on Thursday to decide their next step. The threat of a boycott has been repeatedly raised, with The Telegraph citing an unnamed leading European executive who claimed: “UEFA are seismic about walking.”
The organization which has repeatedly spoken out in opposition to FIFA released a statement on Wednesday which threatened: “FIFA cannot continue to use our sport to enrich themselves and their friends. We can grow the game correctly.”
However, this is not an exclusively European stance. The governing bodies for North America, Central America and the Caribbean (Concacaf) as well as Asia (AFC) have both publicly criticized how this scheme has been presented.
FIFA Don’t Face Universal Opposition
CAF, the governing body of African soccer, released the most neutral of statements currently issued by confederations. The brief release revealed that a meeting of the CAF Executive Committee will be held to evaluate the proposal while all member associations were urged to inspect the documentation themselves.
“CAF is committed to continue consulting and working together with its Member Associations, FIFA, other Football Confederations and stakeholders in support of increasing financial and other resources for the development and growth of football in Africa and worldwide,” it concluded.
Even some within UEFA’s ranks are not necessarily opposed to the idea. David Trunda, president of the Czech soccer association, told Sky News this week: “I can see the pragmatic benefits for Czech football from working in close co-operation with Gianni Infantino and his team.
“Of course we need more details, but my personal point of view is that I can see the positive impact of FIFA’s intentions.”
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This story was originally published July 30, 2026 at 3:30 AM.