00:00FIFA's plan to sell off parts of the World Cup to private investment is worse than the Super League
00:07and a potentially bigger line in the sand for football.
00:11So I'm actually speaking now, I'm supposed to be on a two-week break after the World Cup,
00:15given how big it's become, but I think this story is of such dimensions, of such importance,
00:20that I'm working on it and I've written a bigger piece for The Independent,
00:24which I'll of course touch on in this video.
00:27And I am of course talking about FIFA's announcement on Tuesday evening,
00:33heralded by an exclusive by Martin Ziegler and the Times,
00:37the announcement which ran to 1,403 words of a public statement,
00:42seeking to rationalise this new plan to sell off stakes of the World Cup to private investment.
00:48But even from that, a few choice phrases are now ringing out elsewhere in football.
00:53Well, shocking is one, football's nuclear bomb, the line in the sand, as I say, bigger than 1-1-5.
01:01That was obviously a reference to the Manchester City case.
01:03And as I said at the top of this video, worse than the Super League because of all of the
01:09potential implications and the meanings.
01:11And none of that is exaggerated because I think it ties so many of the extremes and the themes
01:17that have been pushing, pulling and twisting football, let alone the world, for so long.
01:22Potentially crystallising so much of what has been coming to dictate the game's future.
01:29What the game should be and what it's becoming, as I say.
01:32How it repeatedly shows its social value as something you can't buy,
01:36just at the same moment as many try to financially exploit it.
01:40And as regards to what's going to happen next to this story,
01:44what people say in private and what gets done in public.
01:48And you can even roll all that right up to seemingly dry details of governance,
01:52like how the people who are going to vote on this, the heads of the member associations,
01:56are in many cases directly paid by FIFA through positions and committees.
02:00This is when all of that matters, all of these wider kind of long-term football stories,
02:05all of these details, this is when it matters.
02:08How are they going to vote? Who's going to stand where?
02:12And maybe more pertinently, given the direction of the sport for so long,
02:17where is the resistance going to come from?
02:20UEFA have already talked a good game with a statement that directly says,
02:24this crosses a line and rightly asserts the World Cup is not FIFA's to sell.
02:29But are they finally going to play a hand here?
02:32Is this long-running tension between FIFA and UEFA, the European governing body,
02:36finally going to spill out into a war, a conflict,
02:39that football actually arguably needs, given its direction?
02:42Is anyone going to look at the bigger picture and actually make a stand for what the sport is supposed
02:47to be about
02:47and what's good for football and the wider game?
02:51Because, and this really can't be stressed enough,
02:53once you start selling off parts of the game like this,
02:57there's really no getting it back and you have no control over how it's going to end up.
03:02And typical of how football and the world are going,
03:05FIFA's 1,403-word statement, of course, turned that rationale on its head.
03:10And it was of a piece with Gianni Infantino's frankly unhinged statement about criticism on Sunday evening.
03:16But as I say, this announcement was headlined,
03:20FIFA intends to expand football development funding to over $10 billion subject to approval by FIFA member associations.
03:28So duly framing this massive story, this massive plan,
03:32framing it in terms of redistribution, of democracy,
03:36once again, a not-for-profit raising money,
03:39any money, was just automatically elevated as if it's a good thing without any further thought.
03:43But the core reality was finally referenced a bit further down,
03:48as FIFA spoke of, quote,
03:49carefully selecting long-term investors who will purchase minority non-controlling interests,
03:56end quote, in the new FIFA Forward Enterprise Programme.
04:00And that Forward Enterprise Programme is, of course,
04:02a company that's going to be set up to run the primary competitions
04:06with the majority owned by FIFA,
04:0820% to 30% sold to private investors
04:13so they can benefit from or earn money from football's immense,
04:19or the World Cup's immense commercial power,
04:21and then 20% to the 211 FIFA member associations
04:26that they can then decide to sell off themselves if they want.
04:30But, except as we know, I mean, they use the words non-controlling there,
04:33that isn't how such money tends to really work in practice.
04:38By the same token, for all that FIFA bleated in seemingly endless paragraphs
04:43about how such thinking lifts the whole game
04:45and the need to make sure the rest of football grows,
04:48those now responsible for voting on this
04:50need to actually earn their money and think about the deeper implications.
04:54Because there are profound concerns here,
04:57even beyond the core philosophical virtue,
05:00the core idea that should remain untouchable,
05:02that the World Cup only belongs to the countries of the world
05:05and, by extension, its football communities,
05:07and that's it, that it should go no further,
05:09that it's evolved out of the game.
05:11It's not FIFA's to buy and sell, as has been said.
05:16Because what do they think happens?
05:18What do these voters think happens when you allow such interests in?
05:21Yes, there might be the short-term benefit
05:23of being able to point your own national association
05:25to newly flushed cash reserves of up to $20 million.
05:28But what next?
05:30Clue.
05:31Such interests don't tend to have wider societal concerns at hand.
05:36They don't care about the wider game.
05:37They don't care about things that don't make money.
05:40As one source puts it,
05:42the current stakeholders benefit,
05:43but everyone loses out in the future.
05:46Trickle-down economics don't work here,
05:48as the last few decades of football have made emphatically clear.
05:51This is why Celtic or Ajax don't win the Champions League anymore.
05:54It's why every other country suffers a talent drain to Western Europe.
05:58And what would now be directly incentivised,
06:01especially through the establishment of a company to run all this,
06:05would be the expansion of the Club World Cup
06:07and all of the ideas that serve existing wealth,
06:10both in the game and society.
06:12And it shouldn't be forgotten that Infantino was involved in Super League discussions.
06:16The club was at one point thinking they had FIFA's blessing.
06:20The global governing body have now already confirmed that Josh Kushner,
06:23brother of Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner,
06:26has been in talks about becoming the proposed lead investor.
06:29So suddenly, somehow, Infantino's long relationship with Trump
06:33takes on an even sharper perspective,
06:35especially among the mooted next steps for this.
06:38As I say, that excellent exclusive by Martin Ziegler
06:41has already broached that Infantino would be lined up
06:44to run the company as a commissioner
06:46once his final presidential term expires in 2031.
06:51In other words, a lucrative post-presidency life.
06:54When you stand back,
06:55this looks a lot like one man using his position
06:58and the sport for personal betterment.
07:01Or, as one senior insider put it,
07:03only in Infantino's world can things somehow get worse
07:07for the game every day.
07:09And it should be what anyone who cares for the sport stands against.
07:13But will those with actual say really do that?
07:16Will they, as one other insider states,
07:19well, I can't actually repeat what they said there in the video.
07:21I think YouTube will block me, but you can imagine.
07:23It's about putting things on the line.
07:25Some who despise the idea have already marvelled
07:27at its realpolitik genius,
07:30likening it to the fait accompli
07:32of the Saudi Arabia 2034 acclamation
07:34in how everything already looks lined up.
07:36Every individual association will get a huge figure
07:39or could sell off some of their share in the new company.
07:41So those in power right now are clearly incentivised to vote yes.
07:46And this in a world where only a fifth of member associations
07:49actually return audited accounts
07:51to show how FIFA's redistributed money is used.
07:54It reminds how broken the system is,
07:57how the reform that was supposed to take place
07:59after Infantino's succeeded stepladder never happened.
08:03How is this actually going to be stopped
08:04when such a financially attractive package
08:07is taken to Congress for approval
08:09and there are no checks and balances?
08:11It all speaks to this central long-running theme
08:14of the game being taken further and further away
08:16from those who have an actual emotional stake in it,
08:18a personal stake,
08:19right up to the ownership of clubs.
08:22Members of the FIFA Council insist
08:23that they only found out through the media,
08:25reiterating how the body now works.
08:27The FA, chaired by FIFA Vice President Debbie Hewitt,
08:30were completely unaware of the proposal
08:32and it was not mentioned at Friday's board meeting.
08:34Many similar figures have meanwhile declared themselves
08:36shocked, appalled, disgusted.
08:38Except, and this is where the frustration really lies,
08:41we've heard so much of this before.
08:43This, more than ever, is a time for football to act.
08:45Could you wait for countries actually threaten to pull out?
08:47Or will the individual countries
08:48just look at those financial figures?
08:50The world should watch how everyone on this votes.
08:54Hiding behind the majority
08:56and pointing to FIFA's dismally dull politics
08:58will no longer cut it.
08:59This is a decision with repercussions
09:01way beyond all of that.
09:03This is what all of the politics,
09:05all of the game's long problems
09:06were ultimately leading to.
09:08About the idea of something as pure as the World Cup
09:11being just sold off
09:13in a way that no one in football really wants.
09:16This is the line.
09:18Let's see who stands where.
09:20So this has been Miguel Delaney's Inside Football.
09:23It's a compliment to my work for The Independent
09:25and my newsletter of the same name.
09:27If you like the content,
09:28please like, comment, subscribe.
09:30And I will see you soon,
09:32likely with developments on this huge story.
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