FIFA president Gianni Infantino has 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. GIANNI INFANTINO's scandalous plan to sell the World Cup to private investors was finally scrapped on Friday evening. UEFA has declared a loss of confidence in FIFA president Gianni Infantino following the breakdown of his 'shabby, back-room deal' to sell the World Cup. While UEFA welcomed the decision to drop the proposal, it believes Infantino has lost the trust of the football world through his actions, describing the plan as a “shabby, back room, opaque deal”.
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. FIFA wanted to sell a fifth of the new entity to an investor group led by Thrive Eternal — a U.S. investment fund run by Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — for $4.2billion (£3.1bn). 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."
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. "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. "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."