It has certainly been a long three weeks for Fifa’s President Gianni Infantito since the World Cup final.
Following Spain’s victory, it was generally recognised that, despite a few oddities such as the ‘peace prize’ for Trump and the curious case of the rescinding of USA forward Folarin Balogun’s red card, the 2026 World Cup had been extremely successful.
Certainly from a financial standpoint, it’s hard to argue about its success, reportedly bringing in revenues of £11.2 billion. This figure significantly exceeded the targets set before it began, with hospitality and the secondary market for tickets (where Fifa took 15% from both the buyer and seller) being the main sources of the increase.
With individual country’s football associations each preparing to receive a significant slice of the inflated pie, Infantino’s stock at the end of the tournament could not have been higher – yet three weeks later the Football Association has confirmed that it will formally withdraw its support for Infantino’s re-election as the FIFA president (along with many other FAs).
The turnaround is a result of Infantino’s plan to “unleash the commercial potential and opportunity that Fifa has” by seeking investors to fund a newly formed body, the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE). The plan was for FFE to take control of commercial and event operations, including running future World Cups. To fund FFE, Infantino planned to raise up to $20 billion through private investment, in exchange for selling equity in the World Cup.
Perhaps Infantino thought he was riding the crest of a wave, and that announcing his plans so soon after the successful conclusion would mean it would attract less division. Unfortunately for him, the backlash to the announcement was swift and ferocious, especially from UEFA, clearly stating that football “isn’t Fifa’s to sell”. Even our new Prime Minister jumped into the storm, with Burnham stating on X that “football does not belong to investors”.
UEFA formally rejected the proposal, with unanimous support from its 56 members. Concacaf’s (North and Central America) 41 members followed suit, along with the Asian Football Confederation. That meant the maths was against Infantino, with a majority of members publicly opposed, resulting in the FIFA President dropping his plans.
Unfortunately for Gianni, his surrender doesn’t seem to be the end of the matter. Concacaf has subsequently called for a full review into the leadership of FIFA. UEFA also published a damning statement welcoming FIFA’s decision and going on to say that the current FIFA leadership has lost UEFA’s confidence along with many other members of the football family. Most significant is UEFA’s conclusion that “The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through was anything but transparent”.
With such a major backlash, it does look as though Infantino is finished. Whether he follows his predecessor, Sepp Blatter, and resigns, or whether he waits until next March when he is up for re-election remains to be seen.
But let’s not forget that the FIFA President is an extremely powerful position, and the sums of money at his disposal are unprecedented. In its statement UEFA confirmed that FIFA has $5 billion in reserves that it has not used – far be it from me to cast assertions, but that would be a mighty budget for ‘persuading’ individual associations to vote for Gianni next March, and as any football fan knows much stranger things have happened at FIFA in the past!
The commercial success of modern football is unparalleled, with annual revenues equating to the GDP of a small country. Quite why FIFA and Infantino would ‘risk’ their reputation and standing in a quest to earn even more money, when it seems they cannot spend what they have already, is a key question. Perhaps spending the last few weeks in close proximity to the US President has given the FIFA President an addiction to the ‘art of the deal’.
David Little is a Partner at Bishop & Sewell in our expert Sports Law and Corporate & Commercial
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The above is accurate as at 4 August 2026.
The information above may be subject to change. The content of this note should not be considered legal advice, and each matter should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
