UEFA votes to boycott future World Cups over FIFA's commercial plans

UEFA, the governing body of European football, voted on Thursday to boycott future men's and women's World Cups in response to FIFA's plan to sell stakes in the tournaments to private investors.

In a statement released after an emergency meeting of 55 member associations, UEFA said that the World Cup "cannot be considered as an investment product."

"National associations across the world are now presented with an ultimatum: either accept the irreversible takeover of control of the major football tournaments or face the consequences," the document stated.

UEFA added that none of its member associations' national teams will participate in any FIFA tournament "as long as these proposals remain in place" unless FIFA abandons the investment plan entirely and provides legally binding guarantees that it will never hand over control of tournaments to private entities.

Boycotts are not new in World Cup history. England ignored the first three tournaments in 1930, 1934, and 1938, believing their team was superior to the rest of the football world. African nations boycotted the 1966 World Cup by withdrawing from qualifying in protest against FIFA's quota distribution. The USSR refused to play a qualifying match against Chile after Augusto Pinochet's military coup, thereby forfeiting a chance to reach the 1974 World Cup.