Infantino faces backlash after FIFA drops World Cup stake sale plan

FIFA’s attempt to sell stakes in a new $20 billion subsidiary meant to run World Cup rights and other competitions has triggered the broadest challenge to Gianni Infantino’s authority in years. By the end of July, UEFA was threatening a boycott, CONCACAF had rejected the plan, the Asian Football Confederation had joined the pushback and FIFA senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro had resigned in protest.

The fight is about control as much as capital. FIFA was considering bringing in private investors to the new company, a move that would place part of the World Cup’s commercial future inside a subsidiary built around one of sport’s most valuable properties. Infantino brushed aside the backlash on 29 July, describing the idea as a proposal and “not an obligation,” but the opposition only widened after that.

UEFA’s response was the sharpest warning. The European body threatened to boycott FIFA tournaments over the stake-sale plan, turning a governance dispute into a threat to the tournament calendar itself. CONCACAF rejected the proposal on 30 July, while the Asian Football Confederation backed opposition on 31 July, giving the critics reach across three confederations and exposing how isolated FIFA’s leadership had become.

Cordeiro’s resignation on 31 July added another blow. The former U.S. Soccer president stepped down with immediate effect, underscoring that the dispute was no longer just external pressure from member associations. Reuters also reported that FIFA staff felt deceived by the process, a sign that the commercial push had unsettled the organization internally as well as among its regional power brokers.

FIFA said it was moving ahead with a consultation process over the stake-sale plans, and Reuters Connect said Infantino had set a 19 September deadline for members to approve the private investment plan. That deadline gives the president a narrow window to rebuild support, but it also gives opponents time to organize around a common message: FIFA’s biggest assets should not be sold without deeper consent from the confederations that rely on them.

The coalition now circling Infantino includes Europe’s UEFA under Aleksander Ceferin, the North and Central American federation CONCACAF, the Asian Football Confederation, a breakaway senior insider in Cordeiro and a fan group demanding reform. Their shared interest is not simply stopping a single transaction. It is forcing a say over how World Cup money is controlled, who benefits from broadcasting rights and whether FIFA’s next era is shaped by centralized executive power or a broader membership revolt.

Infantino enters that fight with his own political timeline already fixed. He was re-elected by acclamation at the 73rd FIFA Congress in Kigali on 16 March 2023, FIFA later said at its congress in Vancouver on 30 April 2026 that he would stand again in 2027, and BBC Sport said he had now spent 10 years in office as criticism mounted over the FIFA Peace Prize, inflated ticket prices and the Club World Cup. The stake-sale backlash has turned those grievances into a succession question.