Infantino withdraws criticized FIFA commercial plan, admits it caused division

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has announced that he is dropping a previously announced commercial plan that involved creating a partly private subsidiary to sell commercial rights to the World Cup and other competitions.

Infantino said that after listening to all opinions, it was absolutely clear that the project had caused division, which does not serve the interests of the original goal. For this reason, he has decided to step away from the idea.

According to earlier reports, FIFA had intended to establish a partly private entity called "FIFA Forward Enterprise" (FFE) to attract investors to the commercial operations of the World Cup and other tournaments, hoping to raise 4.2 billion US dollars by the end of this year.

The plan drew sharp criticism. On Thursday, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) said that its member associations would boycott FIFA tournaments if the commercial plan were implemented. The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) also rejected the plan, and on Friday the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) joined that stance.

Earlier, Infantino had promised that national football federations supporting the plan would each receive 40 million US dollars. If the project had been approved, by early 2027 each of the 211 FIFA member associations could have received a one-time payment of 20 million US dollars, and their funding allocation for the 2027-2030 cycle would have increased from 8 million to 20 million US dollars.