The FIFA Forward Enterprise project collapsed on Friday night, dealing a major blow to FIFA President Gianni Infantino and fueling calls among European football associations for his removal from the governing body’s top job.
The scheme would have sold a stake in the World Cup to private investors. Its failure followed a run of controversies that had already weakened Infantino’s standing, including his close relationship with US President Donald Trump, the Balogun scandal, and a dispute over the cooling break rule. European associations had been gathering support to remove him from the presidency, according to an analysis by journalist Pedro Ortiz Bisso.
Supporters of the model pointed to similar commercial structures in other sports. Journalist Luis Carrillo Pinto noted that comparable formulas had been applied in the NBA and Formula 1 for years, with those competitions generating more than $11 billion and more than $1.4 billion in revenue respectively in the most recent season alone.
FIFA said the Forward Enterprise project was intended to strengthen member associations and develop the sport globally, particularly in countries where support was most needed.
Carlos Cordeiro, who resigned as an advisor to Infantino, explained his decision in a detailed LinkedIn post. He said FIFA already had access to extraordinary financial resources and that, if federations believed additional investment was needed, the organization had the capacity to provide that support from existing funds.
Cordeiro added that selling a permanent stake in football’s most valuable asset to raise $4.2 billion did not make much sense, saying the plan amounted to mortgaging the future of the sport without any convincing explanation.
Infantino also announced that expanding the next World Cup to 64 teams was under consideration, a move widely read as an attempt to ease the pressure on his leadership. It did not halt the opposition, and the project was abandoned the same night.
Despite the setback, the analysis cautioned against writing off Infantino entirely, noting that a political ally could yet intervene to stop the countdown on his tenure. The FIFA president regularly travels on a $65 million jet provided to the organization by the emirate of Qatar.
