European nations agreed to boycott all FIFA competitions, including the World Cup, after an emergency meeting on Thursday resolved to “unequivocally reject” FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to a private equity group.
Infantino’s proposal was later dealt another major blow when North America’s soccer body Concacaf joined European counterpart UEFA in rejecting the plan.
The decision of UEFA’s 55 members means that major nations including Germany, France, England and world champions Spain would not participate in the men’s or women’s World Cups as long as FIFA’s proposal remains active.
“UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions,” UEFA said in a statement.
Following its own meeting later in the day, the 41-member Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football said it had also rejected the proposal.
Concacaf members include 2026 World Cup hosts the United States, Canada and Mexico. The U.S. Soccer Federation wrote on social media that it “stands with Concacaf and its members.”
Infantino revealed plans earlier this week for the sale of a stake in FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) that would raise $20 billion in exchange for influence over future World Cups including broadcasting and commercial deals linked to the tournament.
The effort is being bankrolled by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
It marks Infantino’s latest effort to align with those in the orbit of Trump: by creating the FIFA peace prize, letting Trump intervene in a process that led to United States forward Folarin Balogun playing at the World Cup and now trying to lock in Joshua Kushner’s investment firm to a 12-year ownership deal with the Switzerland-based not-for-profit soccer body.
The proposal would trigger over $80 million in payouts to each of FIFA’s 211 member associations between now and 2037. Infantino had set a Sept. 19 deadline for associations to accept the plan, with a majority vote needed for it to be implemented.
Following a virtual meeting of UEFA’s 55 member associations in which sources told ESPN that over 50 associations took the floor and expressed unanimity in their anger at Infantino’s proposals, European soccer’s governing body agreed to boycott all future FIFA competitions until the sell-off plan is abandoned.
Sources told ESPN on Wednesday that a potential FIFA boycott by European nations would mean women’s soccer could become a “pawn in politics” since the next World Cup on tap is the 2027 edition of the Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
The first test of this stance will come in September when Poland is due to host the Women’s U20 World Cup.
“Some things are simply too important to sell,” UEFA’s statement added. “The FIFA World Cup belongs to football. It always will. And so long as Europe has a voice, it will never be for sale.”
UEFA added that the lack of “meaningful consultation” over the FIFA plans was a further issue, which they regard as a “failure” by the world governing body.
“This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdication of FIFA’s duty as the custodian of world football,” said UEFA, where Infantino was a longtime staffer and its CEO-like general secretary when he was first elected to lead FIFA in 2016.
After its meeting Thursday, Concacaf said its 41 members “expressed deep concerns about the lack of due process surrounding the proposal, the artificially short deadline imposed, and the absence of any review or approval by the relevant FIFA governance bodies.”
It added that its FIFA Council members would be tasked with “engaging FIFA to determine how existing vast FIFA reserves could be used to increase FIFA Forward funding for football development across our region” as well as “instructing the FIFA President to ensure that any matter follows the proper governance processes via staff and FIFA Council, in accordance with the FIFA Statutes.”
Infantino’s high-stakes financial gambit now could threaten his previously secure 11-year presidency of FIFA as anger and frustration with him rises among soccer stakeholders including three of the six continental bodies.
FIFA has set a Nov. 18 deadline for potential candidates to declare in a presidential vote of the 211 members scheduled next March in Rabat, Morocco.
On a seismic day in soccer politics, a traditional bedrock of support in Asia for FIFA and Infantino had earlier Thursday been shaken.
“FIFA’s unilateral actions appear to undermine the very foundations of continental football,” the Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa said in a letter to its 46 members of FIFA, warning of risks to their own competitions.
Sheikh Salman, an ally to Infantino since losing the FIFA presidential election to him in 2016, wrote “such an initiative will not succeed without the support of all the confederations, which is not the case now.”
Information from Emily Keogh and The Associated Press was used in this report.
