FIFA president Gianni Infantino scrapped his proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup after widespread backlash, including from within global soccer’s governing body, and a threatened boycott by European nations.
Infantino had proposed creating a $20 billion company to run the World Cup with private investors, including the Kushner family, but drew pushback that grew every day since Tuesday’s announcement.
In a statement late Friday, Infantino said the “proposal will not proceed.”
“Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place,” he said.
The U-turn comes after two senior FIFA officials criticized the plan earlier Friday, with one resigning as a presidential adviser and a second saying staff members were deceived by the project that must not go ahead.
Read more:FIFA advances plans for 64-team World Cup review despite private investment backlash
Carlos Cordeiro, who represented the soccer body on the White House Task Force for the World Cup, resigned in protest.
“I cannot stand by while FIFA considers selling a stake in the World Cup,” Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs banker, said in a statement Friday about his resignation as adviser to Infantino that urged other senior FIFA staff to speak out.
Hours later, FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour issued a statement to The Associated Press, saying FIFA staff were deceived by Infantino’s lack of openness in planning the sale over recent months and that the project must not continue.
“It is the project of one person,” wrote Lamour, a long-time colleague of Infantino at FIFA and European soccer body UEFA. “Not only must this project not go ahead … but the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions.”
Read more:FIFA defends World Cup private equity plan: ‘Nobody is selling football’
UEFA’s 55 member nations had agreed to boycott the World Cup and all other FIFA competitions on Thursday to protest the proposal, saying “some things are simply too important to sell.”
“This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdication of FIFA’s duty as the custodian of world football,” UEFA said. Infantino was a longtime UEFA staffer and its CEO-like general secretary when he was first elected to lead FIFA in 2016.
Subsequently, the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) also opposed the plan.
Infantino had proposed spinning off FIFA’s commercial businesses — including World Cups and Club World Cups for men and women — into a $20 billion subsidiary with 20% owned by private investors.
The “anchor investor,” described by FIFA, is a New York-based investment firm created by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of U.S. President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
“Moving forward, my intent is to bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks in the spirit of shared interest in our game, and with the objective to continue growing football everywhere, particularly in those countries that mostly need our support,” Infantino added in his statement Friday.
The next FIFA competition is the Women’s Under-20 World Cup starting Sept. 5 in Poland — which UEFA members said they would boycott.
The misstep could prove costly for Infantino, particularly after the interventions by Lamour and Cordeiro.
Reelected unopposed in 2019 and 2023, Infantino is allowed one more four-year term under FIFA statutes. The deadline for the next presidential contest is Nov. 18, exactly four months ahead of the vote in Rabat, Morocco, where FIFA has its African headquarters.
Infantino’s job seemed secured despite long-term unease with his style and previous attempts to force through unpopular projects but could become more tenuous with the failed private equity proposal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
