All 55 UEFA nations just voted unanimously to boycott FIFA over Infantino's World Cup sell off plan

[GhostRider14]

UEFA held an emergency virtual meeting on Thursday and every single one of its 55 member associations voted to boycott FIFA competitions, including the men's and women's World Cups, if FIFA president Gianni Infantino goes ahead with his plan to sell private equity stakes in the tournament, that is Germany, France, England and reigning champions Spain all lined up together against their own governing body

The actual proposal on the table is a sale of roughly a 20 percent stake in a new commercial entity called FIFA Forward Enterprise, working with JPMorgan and backed by American investor Josh Kushner, aiming to raise up to 20 billion dollars, in exchange FIFA is dangling one off payments of 20 million dollars to each of its 211 global member associations plus a jump in annual funding from 2 million to 5 million dollars per year, which is exactly the kind of money that makes smaller federations reliant on FIFA funding very hard to say no to

UEFA's own statement did not hold back at all, calling the plan a profound failure of leadership and an abdication of FIFA's duty as custodian of the game, more than 40 representatives reportedly took the floor during the meeting to voice frustration, with the recurring complaint being that this was conceived in near total secrecy and brought to the edge of approval without any real consultation with the people actually responsible for stewarding football day to day

The first real test of this boycott threat lands fast, the Women's Under 20 World Cup hosted by Poland kicks off September 5, and UEFA's stance would mean European nations simply do not show up, which puts FIFA in an awkward spot heading into a tournament it needs credible participants for, this is not a symbolic gesture aimed at some distant future event

There is a political undercurrent running through this too, Infantino is up for re-election next March and had been expected to run unopposed, this standoff has reportedly weakened that expectation and increased the odds a Europe backed challenger enters the race, UK Culture Minister Lisa Nandy also weighed in publicly saying football belongs to the fans and not billionaire investors, so this has already spilled well past football administration into actual government level commentary

Uefa agrees to boycott Fifa competitions if World Cup sell-off plans proceedwww.theguardian.com

[Reacher Mitchell]

Unanimous across all 55 members is the number that actually surprised me here, UEFA rarely gets that kind of total alignment on anything, this suggests genuine widespread anger rather than a few loud voices driving the room

[HardyBoy13]

The Under 20 Women's World Cup in September being the first real flashpoint is going to make this very hard to walk back quietly, either Europe actually sits it out or the boycott threat gets exposed as an empty gesture almost immediately

[Nicola]

20 million dollars upfront per federation is exactly the kind of number that could split this coalition eventually, smaller and more cash strapped federations outside Europe may see this very differently once the money is actually on the table

[Rapid Ava]

That's the interesting split though, this is specifically a UEFA boycott, the rest of FIFA's 211 members haven't signaled the same resistance, so this might end up being Europe versus everyone else rather than football united against the plan

[Jacob_64]

Infantino's re-election suddenly looking less certain is the real story buried underneath all the World Cup framing, a real European backed challenger entering that race would be the first serious threat to his position in years

[Stag]

The secrecy complaint is the part that lands hardest for me, bringing a 20 billion dollar restructuring of the World Cup to the brink of approval without consulting the confederations that actually run the sport day to day is a pretty staggering governance failure regardless of what you think of the deal itself

[Rocket]

Genuinely curious what FIFA's actual response looks like now, doubling down feels risky with this much unified pushback, but reversing course entirely after already lining up JPMorgan and Kushner's backing would be its own kind of embarrassment