FEDERATION of International Football Association [FIFA] which is the global body in charge of football, is awash with cash. And this is no rumour. It has staggering reserves running into billions of dollars. It’s far richer than many countries of the world. And it’s a non-profit organisation, meaning that its incomes are tax-exempt. FIFA raked in a dizzying $15 billion in revenue during the World Cup tournaments cycle of 2022 hosted by Qatar and the just ended one which had the United States [USA], Mexico and Canada as joint hosts. So if paucity of funds is not a pressing problem, or the potential of funds strictures in the near future, what then informed the FIFA Forward Enterprise [FFE] hastily* cobbled together by its president, Gianni Infantino? GREED.
There are too many fat cats in FIFA at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and in its 211 member associations. FIFA henchmen make a fetish of not being sued in regular courts and clothes itself with the type of immunity that almost rivals that of the heads of sovereign nations. They boast by saying that football cannot be sued. All grievances pertaining to football and its governance which have, anyway been poor and opaque for decades, can only be ventilated in, and through, CAS [the so-called Court of Arbitration for Sport] located also in Geneva.
Prior to 2016, there was virtually no term limit to the presidency of FIFA. The same applied to the headships of confederations of FIFA’s member associations. That explains why for a long time football administration at the global level was associated with Joao Havelange and later Sepp Blatter. In like manner, for donkey years, no follower of the so-called beautiful game in Africa could separate football or soccer as Americans call it on the continent from Issa Hayatou, an almost eternal president of CAF.
It took a breathtaking scandal to force Sepp Blatter from the presidency of FIFA in 2016 and to introduce a maximum of three terms of four years each. Infantino served out the outstanding two years of Blatter and then began his own presidency which, if he survives the current FFE scandal which he brought on himself, should end in 2031. It will require immense manoeuvring skills and high stakes politicking for Infantino to retain his presidency when election falls due next year. The angst against him from an overwhelming majority of member associations [more than two-thirds] as at last weekend had forced him to scrap the fraud-tainted FFE. Now Infantino has to focus on fighting for his job. The knife is out especially from UEFA, easily the most powerful and lucrative football confederation.
In spite of spearheading the push against Infantino and his FFE, there is something hypocritical about UEFA. The European football governing body has been in poll position in the mindless commercialisation of football over the years. At the top of the exploitation of football, footballers and fans is the English Premier League [EPL]. Part of the reasons why the Premier League is the envy of other leagues and awash with cash is because it has sold everything pertaining to football that can be sold, including broadcast rights and aspects of branding. It has also deployed powerful and overwhelming marketing tools to entrench itself and dominate the rest of the world. Inevitably, UEFA’s stout opposition to FFE could have arisen from its morbid fear of rivalry from FIFA on a global scale. Europe wants to enjoy the luxury and power of being the sole confederation that calls the shots on matters of football.
In summary, the FFE which Infantino has been forced to abandon barely 48 hours after a journalist blew the whistle on it, proposes the creation of a $20 billion commercial subsidiary by selling a stake of FIFA’s tournaments especially the World Cup to private investors. For a start FIFA planned to sell up to 20% minority stake to immediately raise about $4.2 billion from private equity. There was something curious about this proposal which came on the heels of the conclusion of this year’s controversial World Cup. Joshua Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner who is the son-in-law of the president of the US Donald Trump by virtue of his marriage to Ivanka Trump. Joshua Kushner is reportedly a key member of the private equity firm that was associated with planning to buy a stake in FIFA’s World Cup tournaments. It’s an intricate web. Wherever there is money to be made by hook or crook means, a Trump name is likely to feature, especially since the return of Donald Trump to the American presidency in 2024. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the prospective investors in the now botched deal.
The US, along with Canada and Mexico, hosted the just concluded FIFA World Cup. Spain won the Cup which was contested by 48 national teams out of the 211 national member associations. In FIFA, there are six regional confederations including 54 member associations of CAF [Africa]; 55 member associations of UEFA [Europe]; AFC [Asia] composed of 47 member associations; CONCACAF [North/Central America & Caribbean] of 41 member associations; OFC [Oceania] comprising 13 member associations; and, CONMEBOL [South America] made up of 10 member associations. The 211 member associations of FIFA exceeded the 193 sovereign member states of the United Nations because it includes distinct territories such as England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. United Kingdom [UK] had always played the fast one on the rest of the world. That explained why England and Scotland were at this year’s World Cup. A day may yet come when the four nations within that country would qualify for the tournament at the same time.
Infantino is a wily global bureaucrat. He is deliberate. He is a good student. He has learnt from his predecessors in office. How they made personal money out of football, and the mistakes some of them made that landed them in trouble, and on trial in courts of law. Their attempts to hide under the omnibus claim that nobody can sue football in regular courts did not quite shield them from accountability for alleged shady deals. Last month FIFA announced that it made about $15 billion during the World Cup cycles between Qatar 2022 and the expanded 48-team World Cup tournament hosted across three North American countries this year. In 2030, the World Cup will still be contested by as many as 48 national teams and will be hosted by six countries across three continents. 2030 will be the centenary of the formal start of World Cup tournaments.
He may have started earlier but Infantino’s designs for the World Cup tournament as a cash cow for the fat cats of football in Geneva, Switzerland, and in the federations in 211 countries and territories, began to manifest last year in America. Out of the blues, Infantino conjured an annual FIFA Peace Prize, and awarded the maiden prize to President Trump, for his role in promoting global peace. At the time that Infantino was decorating Trump as a trouble shooter, the American president was being fingered as complicit in the alleged genocide by Israel on Gaza, a contested Palestinian homeland, in the Middle East. As we write this, the same FIFA Peace Prize Laureate has been embroiled in a bloody war on Iran since February 28. Among others, it was claimed that on the first day of the war then jointly levied on Iran by the US and Israel, no less than 200 children in a school in Iran were murdered in air raids. Infantino’s FIFA Peace Prize which was awarded to Trump, a convicted felon, is soaked in blood. And so, by association, Infantino’s hands are soaked in blood. Those who enabled Infantino in his silly Peace Prize share in the abomination.
By the way, many football watchers knew that Infantino’s emergency FIFA Peace Prize was forged to appease the American president who had been overlooked in the award of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Peace by the globally recognised Norwegian body. Trump and his acolytes had campaigned strenuously, even to the point of blackmail, to have the American president declared as the winner. Trump was obsessed with winning the Nobel Prize simply because his more illustrious predecessor, Barack Obama, had won the Prize months into his presidency in 2009. Trump hates Obama, the first African-American president of the US, with a passion. The dislike is becoming mutual, anyway.
Ostensibly, because the Norwegian Nobel Committee had spurned Trump, and fearing that this could make him act irrationally about being a co-host of the World Cup, Infantino quickly conjured his own variant of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize which he branded FIFA Peace Prize. Trump was not appeased by the fact that he virtually coralled and coerced the deserved winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuela’s opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, to gift him her award plaque or a caricature of it. The Nobel Committee promptly poured cold water on Machado’s gesture to Trump in a statement where it reiterated the rules governing the award. The Nobel Institute declared that once a prize was announced, the decision was final and applied for all time under the statutes of the Nobel Foundation. It also said that though a physical medal or diploma could physically change hands, ‘’the official status of the laureate cannot be reassigned or shared with a third party like the US President Donald Trump’’. The Committee then added the clincher: No Withdrawal Mechanism – ‘’Neither Alfred Nobel’s will nor the foundation rules permit withdrawing or transferring a prize once awarded’’.
There is little doubt that at the point when Infantino was decorating Trump with his fake award in December 2025, he was ruminating on this FIFA Forward [Football Fraud] Enterprise. The move is projected to boost funding of the global body and jerk up FIFA Forward funding from $8 million to $20 million per member association, plus an extra $20 million via a Fast Forward programme. Personally, some football financial analysts have also calculated that the proposed privatisation of football could lift Infantino’s annual income from under $2 million to over $7m per annum. If the fans who actually make football tick are part of the calculations in this proposal, the details are not yet fully in the public domain.
Expectedly, there was a strong pushback on this Infantino fancy. UEFA summoned an emergency meeting from which it rose and outrightly rejected the proposal. It added that Europe would consider boycotting future FIFA tournaments the first of which comes up in September, the U21 Women event. CONCACAF and Asia’s confederations have also trashed the failed proposal for, among other reasons, lack of consultations and adherence to due process. CAF and other member associations were said to be studying the proposal as at last weekend. A report on Friday had claimed that about 143 confederations had rejected the proposal. As events unfold the failure of the Infantino gamble will be the first step in the unravelling of FIFA. The next question will be whether Infantino will still retain his presidency when election falls due next year.
For years FIFA had been in dire need of drastic and comprehensive reforms. It suffers from palpable governance issues. Its henchmen are regulators and active players in the lucrative football industry. Until 10 years ago, a FIFA president could remain in office for life. An outraged world rose as one to impose term limit on FIFA presidency starting with Infantino. If he survives this controversy of attempting to sell football, his statutory three terms of four years each should terminate in 2031. He may not make it. More resignations may follow that of a financial adviser of Infantino who quit last weekend.
The resignation of Carlos Cordeiro, a senior adviser to Infantino and a former Goldman Sacks banker, may trigger an exodus from FIFA and pile further pressure on Infantino. Cordeiro was also a former head of the American Soccer Federation. He said that the FFE was a product of greed, ‘’a bad deal for football’’ and that it mortgages the future of football without justification. He revealed that FIFA already holds billions in reserves, has no debt, and generated $15bn in revenue during the 2022-2026 World Cup cycle. Infantino is bad for football and he should be forced from office. But there is no guarantee that his replacement would be any better without the sanitization of FIFA. FIFA’s corruption and the greed of its henchmen are systemic.
