By Ian Ransom
July 30 (Reuters) – UEFA and its 55 European member nations voted unanimously on Thursday to boycott the World Cup and all FIFA tournaments in protest at world soccer’s governing body’s plan to sell a stake to external investors.
The dramatic move came after the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) issued a scathing letter to the continent’s 47 member associations and warned the proposal would never succeed without the support of all of football’s regional blocs.
“UEFA and its 55 member associations stand as one. We unanimously and unequivocally reject FIFA’s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors,” UEFA said in a statement.
“As a result of today’s discussion, no UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.”
European soccer’s ruling body said the World Cup was not for sale and could not be treated as an investment product or surrendered to private investors.
“This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdication of FIFA’s duty as the custodian of world football,” it said of the proposal.
“The moment external investors acquire ownership interests in FIFA competitions, football changes forever. Commercial return becomes a permanent obligation. Investor expectations become a daily pressure.”
AFC EXPRESSES DEEP CONCERN
AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa said his body was not consulted by FIFA at any level prior to the public announcement and declared that, and the lack of any detailed governance, financial or legal analysis of the proposal, as “totally unacceptable”.
“FIFA’s unilateral actions appear to undermine the very foundations of Continental football, which are based on solidarity, cooperation and transparency,” added the Bahraini.
The AFC’s forthright criticism heaps further pressure on FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who has spearheaded the contentious plan to create a $20 billion subsidiary to run the World Cup and its other events, while offering minority stakes to private investors.
CONCACAF, the regional bloc for North America, Central America and the Caribbean, also criticised FIFA for a lack of consultation.
Infantino offered FIFA’s 211 member associations $40 million each if they agree to the proposal by September 19 as part of a $10 billion package to become available from January 1, 2027.
If rejected, the package would revert to $2.7 billion previously offered, around $10 million per member association.
Infantino said FIFA will put the proposal to a vote by its member associations (MAs) and then to its executive Council.
However, Sheikh Salman said it would need all six of the regional blocs behind it.
“Such an initiative will not succeed without the support of all the confederations, which is not the case now,” he wrote.
The African confederation’s executive committee will meet next week to evaluate the proposal, while the Oceania confederation, the smallest regional bloc with 11 full member nations, said it would discuss the proposal at a meeting next month.
South American governing body CONMEBOL has yet to comment publicly.
‘TOURNAMENTS SHOULD NOT BE FOR SALE’
Players’ bodies have also expressed opposition to FIFA’s plan, with FIFPRO, the global players union, warning the proposal would irreversibly reshape the incentives underpinning the competitions in which players work and build careers.
Australia’s players union joined the criticism on Thursday, saying the governing body was putting pressure on member associations to wave the proposal through while sidelining the athletes and fans who generate the value of the tournaments.
“The PFA is disturbed by the lack of transparency surrounding the proposal and the absence of meaningful consultation with those that generate the value that FIFA is seeking to exploit – the players and the fans,” Professional Footballers Australia said in a statement.
“At a time when football desperately requires greater transparency, accountability and good governance, proposals of this significance raise questions about who the game is run by and in whose interests. These tournaments should not be for sale.”
Former Liberty Media Chief Executive Greg Maffei, a commercial adviser to FIFA on the project, said it was not a matter of “selling the World Cup” and the governing body would always have majority control.
“There’s a trend of this going on in sports all over the place,” the American, who oversaw Liberty Media’a acquisition of Formula One’s commercial rights in 2017, told the Financial Times. “It’s something that all sorts of people have done.”
(Reporting by Ian Ransom, Michael Church, Shrivathsa Sridhar and Alan Baldwin; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Nick Mulvenney and Ed Osmond)
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