Football is the world’s biggest grossing sport. Now they want to bleed it dry.
During these latter days of late-stage capitalism and early days of techno-fascism/feudalism, a useful rule of thumb is that one can never be too cynical about our overlords’ actions and intentions. When the 2026 World Cup began, we asked how much damage Donald Trump’s reverse Midas touch could inflict on the world’s greatest sports event. Even our worst-case prognosis fell dramatically short.
Worse still, the damage continues to grow, which is why our coverage of the Trump-Infantino-run 2026 World Cup continues — almost two full weeks after the event ended. This was not supposed to happen. The fallout from the 2026 World Cup was supposed to have subsided by now, not keep growing. Once again, my apologies to non-football fans. To borrow from Michael Corleone…
A quick recap of events to date…
FIFA’s money grubbing President, Gianni Infantino, set the tone of the tournament way back in November by awarding President Trump FIFA’s inaugural Mickey Mouse peace prize — a move critics claimed was a violation of the governing body’s rules on political neutrality. FIFA would also end up renting the 17th floor of Trump Tower in the months leading up the event.
During the tournament itself, the FIFA World Cup became just another stage for Trump’s cruelty and corruption. The US authorities denied entry to the Somali referee Omar Artan as well as countless football fans. The Trump administration also took the unprecedented step of barring the Iranian national side from spending the night in the US following WC matches.
FIFA is also no slouch when it comes to corruption and greed. Its decision to adopt dynamic pricing strategies for the matches as well as profit from inflated secondary prices meant that most fans of moderate means were priced out of seats. Other controversies included the decision to introduce mandatory three-minute commercial hydration breaks in the first and second halves of games, effectively carving the matches into US-style quarters.
The biggest scandal came later in the tournament when FIFA bowed to pressure from Trump administration figures, including Trump himself, to revoke a one-match suspension for US forward Folarin Balogun for the quarter-final against Belgium. The violence that erupted at the final whistle of the final between Spain and Argentina, instigated by angry Argentine players, seemed a fitting end to the tournament as a whole.
But all of this paled into insignificance with what would come after the event. After their national side lost, deservedly, to Spain in the final, many Argentines are struggling to come to terms with the new reality of defeat. If the chatter on social media is any indication, some are convinced that [V]Argentina was the victim of a FIFA conspiracy, despite having benefited disproportionately from refereeing decisions throughout the tournament.
The Milei government has taken advantage of the national mood by changing the Migration Law by decree to enable the expulsion of any foreign citizens who express “messages of hatred” against Argentina or its symbols. As NC reader Ciroc wrote in response to my post on Milei’s recent attacks on Brazil’s President Lula, Milei had “clearly hoped a victory would boost his approval ratings… Now that that dream has been shattered, he can only lash out.”
But the biggest scandal of all came on Tuesday, when Infantino unveiled plans to effectively privatise the World Cup, creating a new for-profit entity that will give US investors direct exposure to the tournament’s commercial activities (and future growth). If the plan comes to fruition, the lead investor will reportedly be Thrive Eternal, a private equity fund founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.
EXCLUSIVE: Fifa’s president Gianni Infantino is planning to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors under a scheme that could potentially earn him tens of millions of pounds.
Investor discussions held with figures close to the Trump administration, say sources.…— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) July 28, 2026
From The Athletic:
FIFA has announced plans to sell a large minority stake in a new company that will run its main events, including the World Cup and Club World Cup, as part of a plan to triple the amount of development money it dishes out to its 211 member associations.
Under the proposals — which are subject to approval by a majority of those national associations and FIFA’s 37-member council — a new entity called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) will take over all commercial operations, while FIFA remains the game’s global governing body and retains a majority stake in FFE.
But as some have pointed out, as long as Infantino is in charge of FIFA, it will be the Trump-aligned investors who will effectively enjoy de facto majority control. Put simply, this is about squeezing every last drop of financial value out of the sport until it’s been sucked dry. Once the preserve of the working classes, football is already the world’s biggest grossing sport and arguably the one most corrupted by corporate interests.
“Created by the poor stolen by the rich” banner flies at the World Cup.
Protesting the fact that Football has been stolen by the rich. pic.twitter.com/tggqYyCIzL
— BladeoftheSun (@BladeoftheS) June 11, 2026
Now they want to suck it dry.
It’s quite obvious that the USA World Cup was used by Infantino, in cahoots with Trump, to demonstrate to investors how much money can be extracted out of the beautiful game. The whole thing – the hydration breaks, the awful half time show – it was all a set-up.
— Sam (@SamCKx) July 30, 2026
How Infantino hopes (or hoped) to achieve that goal is quite simple: to buy the votes of smaller, poorer national football associations in the Global South by offering the following two inducements:
- The possibility of participating in future enlarged World Cups. The 2026 WC, which was enlarged to 48 teams, saw four countries playing in the tournament for the first time: Curacao, Jordan, Uzbekistan and Cape Verde, which even reached the knock-out stage where they almost beat Argentina on one of the tournament’s best matches. Infantino is now offering the juicy prospect of a 64-team tournament in 2030.
- A one-off payment of $40 million to each association provided a majority of associations agree to the proposal. The associations have only five weeks to make their decision — a decision that will change FIFA’s organisation structures beyond all recognition. If a majority reject the proposal, the associations will receive only a third of the amount.
This IMO is perhaps the single sharpest emotional rhetorical move in the whole video. The 2026 world cup saw 4 countries playing in the world cup for the very first time. Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan.
He named Cape Verde twice for obvious reasons. They made it to… pic.twitter.com/TpqARKRyfG
— Yinka Ogunnubi (@yinkanubi) July 30, 2026
Some countries have already expressed an interest in the offer…
BREAKING: Indonesian FA president vows to back World Cup sell-off despite growing backlash.
Our City editor @MarkKleinmanSky reports ⬇️ https://t.co/gKWih33VXy
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 30, 2026
The scandal gets even worse when you look at the numbers. Infantino looking to sell a sizable chunk of a very profitable non-profit organisation (a topic for another day) to senior Trump insiders, he seems to be doing so at a very low price, as Duncan Castles, a sports journalist with The Times of London, points out with some back-of-the-envelope maths:
Infantino wants to sell the World Cup to the Trump mafia and others for $4.2billion • [At] a valuation of $20bn, this implies the sale of a 21% stake • 11 days ago FIFA said it expected its 2023-26 revenues to ‘top $15billion’ • So that’s $4.2bn to purchase 21% of ~$3.75bn of annual revenue. A multiple of 5.33x revenue
In 2019, Silver Lake paid a multiple of 5.8x revenue to buy around 10% of City Football Group • BlueCo paid a multiple of 4.9 to buy Chelsea in a UK-government-enforced sale • Ineos paid a multiple of between 7 & 8 to buy 25% of Manchester United • In 2025 a minority stake in MLS club Los Angeles FC sold at 7.9x revenue • The company which owns UFC and WWE currently trades on a multiple of 6.2x revenue • The last Major League Baseball franchise to change hands went for 5.3x revenue • NFL’s Washington Commanders recently sold for 10x revenue • NBA’s LA Lakers are in the process of being sold for ~16x revenue.
The World Cup is the most popular sporting event humanity has ever developed. Some would argue it is our most important cross-cultural event. As @rpmcomooften points out, it has essentially zero acquisition costs for talent (compare that to other sports properties).
None of the football clubs above make anything vaguely approaching the profits of the World Cup, yet Gianni Infantino wants to sell football’s crown jewel at a similar or lower valuation. Either Infantino is stupid enough to be selling the World Cup at a price hugely under its true value, or he has a personal incentive to do exactly that.
Readers will be unsurprised to learn that the prospectus for the deal was drawn up by JP Morgan, the US bank that was also behind the failed European Super League breakaway five years ago. As of a few months ago, the lender was also in talks to provide banking services to the Trump’s Board of Peace initiative, which is tasked with rebuilding Gaza even as Israel continues the genocide there.
The sheer scale of greed and corruption has left many football fans and pundits pining for the more genteel graft of yesteryear. As Branko Milankovic notes, corruption under Infantino is orders of magnitude worse than it was under his scandal-tarnished predecessor, Sepp Blatter:
Blatter’s was the usual, naive corruption of envelopes under the table. Infantino’s is investment bank, JP Morgan, financial corruption at a totally different scale & [with it] the destruction of the game and of a 100-year-old completion which is now seen as an ordinary financial enterprise. Football is not for investment bankers!
Gianni Infantino’s vulgar, grasping, Italian-Swiss corruption really does make one long for the halcyon days of Sepp Blatter and his elegant, refined, German-Swiss corruption.
— Anton Hofmiller (@bnzchr) July 29, 2026
On the bright side, Infantino’s plan has already hit a couple of major setbacks. On the one hand, it is now in the crosshairs of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee in Washington. As the committee’s ranking Democrat member Jamie Raskin told Politico, “FIFA, Donald Trump’s favourite corrupt racketeering enterprise in world sports, is now going directly into business with the Trump family!”
If the Democrats win a house majority in November, Raskin and his fellow Democrats would have the power to compel Infantino’s testimony as well as demand a list of gifts provided to Trump, communications on Justice Department matters, and visitor logs for FIFA’s Miami headquarters and Trump Tower office.
Even more important, the Union of European Football Associations, aka UEFA, wants nothing to do with the plan and is willing to boycott all FIFA event. The world’s most powerful regional football association announced yesterday that neither it nor its 55 member associations would be participating in any FIFA competitions as long as FIFA persists with its plan to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors.
Statement on behalf of UEFA and its 55 National Associations
— UEFA (@UEFA) July 30, 2026
UEFA’s surprisingly brief and concise statement presents a strong case for why all national and regional football associations should reject Infantino’s proposal, and is worth reading in full (emphasis my own).
The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product. It is one of football’s greatest sporting legacies. It has been built over generations by players, national teams and supporters across every continent. No part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale.
It is both irresponsible and indefensible that a proposal of such significance for football was conceived in secret and brought to the brink of approval without any meaningful consultation with those entrusted with stewarding the game. This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdication of FIFA’s duty as the custodian of world football.
National associations around the world are now presented with an ultimatum: accept the irreversible capture of football’s greatest competitions or bear the consequences. This is not a “democratic decision”, but governance by intimidation – an act of coercion unworthy of an institution entrusted with the stewardship of the global game.
But our opposition goes far beyond process.
The moment external investors acquire ownership interests in FIFA competitions, football changes forever. Commercial return becomes a permanent obligation. Investor expectations become a daily pressure. From that moment onwards, every decision on the international calendar, every decision on competition formats and every decision shaping the future of football is no longer driven by what best serves the game, but by what best serves shareholders.
As a result of today’s discussion, no UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.
Nobody should be in any doubt: UEFA and its national associations will oppose these plans with absolute determination.
There are moments when institutions are judged not by what they are prepared to accept, but by what they refuse to compromise. This is one of those moments.
Some things are simply too important to sell. The FIFA World Cup belongs to football. It always will. And so long as Europe has a voice, it will never be for sale.
Some nice trolling from one of Europe’s biggest breweries…
This is actually real: pic.twitter.com/BaXWt9Fe07
— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) July 30, 2026
It is nice to see the whole of Europe for once uniting in defiance of the US’ unilateral actions. It’s just a shame that it’s only willing to do so to protect the game of football as well as UEFA’s own business and financial interests — instead of, say, presenting a united front against genocide in Gaza and Southern Lebanon, the war in West Asia or the US’ medieval siege of Cuba.
🚨 BREAKING! 🤯
European football officials are considering Qatari sports executive Nasser al-Khelaifi as a potential challenger to Gianni Infantino in next year’s election for FIFA president. 🇶🇦
ℹ️ @SophiaCai99 pic.twitter.com/NE2mzLyRXi
— Polymarket FC (@PolymarketFC) July 30, 2026
But on this particular occasion, UEFA is most definitely on the right side of history. A fitting meme…
Infantino being invited to UEFA Headquarters pic.twitter.com/tAy5Ep8ntK
— Hughes-on-the-Wold (@NotThatHughes) July 30, 2026
Without Europe’s participation in the World Cup (both male and female categories) and other FIFA events, Infantino’s proposed business enterprise suddenly loses a huge amount of value. Europe accounted for three of this year’s semi-finalists and six of the eight quarter-finalists. Who would invest in an enlarged World Cup tournament missing most of the elite teams?
Meanwhile, if push came to shove, UEFA has both the money and influence to set up its own breakaway version of the World Cup if FIFA proceeds with its proposed plan.
Sky Sport’s Kaveh Solhekol says UEFA threat to boycott FIFA World Cup over private investment plan very credible.
UEFA includes most key European teams and already runs Euros and Champions League. UEFA could try to “set up their own version of World Cup”. pic.twitter.com/0UZ2LHyBj7 https://t.co/kaMV0PzGP6
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) July 30, 2026
The good news is that UEFA is not alone in opposing the plan. Concacaf, the Confederation of North America, Central America and the Caribbean, has also rejected the proposal and tasked its 41 Council Members with “engaging FIFA to determine how existing vast FIFA reserves could be used to increase FIFA Forward funding for football development across our region.”
In recent hours, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) also joined UEFA and Concacaf in opposing Infantino’s plan, meaning a majority of association members have already rejected it. In a statement, the AFC said Infantino’s plan could not “realistically achieve the necessary broad consensus and unity required to move forward”.
As the ranks of dissenters grow, Infantino’s position at the helm of FIFA could soon become untenable, which would surely be the best possible outcome of this disastrous World Cup and the Trump and Kushner families’ efforts to take over world football’s governing body. The fact that Infantino’s senior advisor, Carlos Cordeiro, just resigned in protest at the proposed plan makes such an outcome even more likely.
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