FIFA’s plan to sell world cup to private investors “completely different from all the other things they’ve sold and ruined”

Just ten days after staging the most lucrative World Cup in history, generating at least $10 billion and attracting record crowds to matches priced beyond the reach of most humans, FIFA has announced it needs more money.

The proposal, unveiled by president Gianni Infantino on Tuesday, would create a $20 billion subsidiary to manage the commercial rights to the World Cup and sell 20% of minority stakes to outside investors — a group expected to be led by a vehicle connected to Josh Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the president of the United States who personally intervened in this summer’s tournament to overturn a red card. FIFA noted this was all entirely coincidental and pressed on.

UEFA, football’s European governing body, responded with a statement describing the plan as crossing “a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross” — a sentiment that carries considerable weight coming from an organisation that has spent thirty years watching FIFA cross every other line available without particular consequence.

FIFA, which is registered as a non-profit in Switzerland, said the new structure would allow it to distribute more money to its 211 member federations, raising their individual allocations from $8 million to $20 million per cycle. Critics noted that this represents a reasonable outcome for the 211 federations and an extraordinary outcome for whoever ends up owning a slice of the world’s most watched sporting event.

The proposal still requires approval from FIFA’s member nations, who will vote on it at a congress. Infantino is of course expected to chair the congress.