​FIFA foul: On the shelved FIFA Forward Enterprise

The collapse of FIFA’s controversial plan that would have helped private investors benefit from the World Cup and other flagship competitions represents the latest hit to the global body’s reputation. In the aftermath of the 2026 World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino hurriedly put together strategies to form the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to consolidate all revenue-generating operations, and invite private bodies to hold non-controlling stakes in the body. But this elicited enormous backlash from a number of FIFA’s 211 member associations, with European governing body UEFA even declaring that its 55 members would boycott the World Cup. Europe is football’s nerve-centre, and with the Asian Football Confederation and players’ union FIFPRO also expressing apprehensions, and one of Mr. Infantino’s senior advisers quitting in protest, the scheme was a non-starter. The episode has also reduced Mr. Infantino’s standing, especially after the controversy-ridden World Cup, where political interference by the U.S. — one of the co-hosts — and rampant commercialisation severely diminished ‘the beautiful game’. The now-shelved FFE was to be backed by a venture capitalist with familial ties to U.S. President Donald Trump, making the whole deal all the more suspect. The 2027 FIFA election, where Mr. Infantino was expected to be re-elected for a third full term, is no longer a cake-walk.

The saga has brought back into focus the conflict at the heart of FIFA’s functioning and the patronage politics it enables. FIFA is the global regulator of the sport, and ideally, its commercial wing should be kept at an arm’s length. However, the organisation’s structure is such that the revenue generated is often used as leverage to extract favour. As a non-profit, FIFA is duty-bound to redistribute income amongst its members, but presidents — past and present — have turned it into a vote-catching tool to hold on to power. To approve the FFE project, FIFA had reportedly offered each of its members $20 million upfront, and a direct beneficiary of this would have been Mr. Infantino at next year’s election, for every association has one vote. However, history shows that moves to use legacy tournaments for self-aggrandisement are bound to fail. In 2018, the International Tennis Federation entered into a 25-year, $3 billion partnership with a private investment firm to re-jig the over-a-century-old Davis Cup, with the promise of extra money for the game’s global development. That agreement lasted just five years, with the shift from the traditional home-and-away format deeply unpopular and considered soul-shattering to the sport. It is time FIFA re-inculcates fairness, embraces consensus and shuns its president’s unilateralism.