{"id":576141,"date":"2026-07-30T21:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T21:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/576141\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T21:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T21:37:08","slug":"fai-joins-uefa-nations-in-world-cup-boycott-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/576141\/","title":{"rendered":"FAI joins Uefa nations in World Cup boycott \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Football Association of Ireland<\/a> is joining the rest of Uefa<\/a>\u2019s national associations in boycotting all Fifa<\/a> competitions over plans to sell a stake in the World Cup<\/a> to private-equity firms. <\/p>\n

Fifa asked its member associations on Tuesday to approve a plan to transfer the commercial interests of the World Cup and all other Fifa competitions to a new subsidiary, up to 20 per cent of which would be sold to private investors. <\/p>\n

But in what marks an extraordinary rupture in global football<\/a>, Uefa\u2019s 55 members issued a statement following a meeting on Thursday to say they are boycotting Fifa competitions until the proposals are abandoned and binding assurances are given that they will not be resurrected. <\/p>\n

In a blistering statement, Uefa called Fifa\u2019s presentation of the proposals \u201can act of coercion.\u201d Fifa president Gianni Infantino wrote to member associations on Tuesday to outline the proposals, saying their adoption would boost members\u2019 funding to $20 million over four years, and that members had until September 19th to agree to the proposals and earn a bonus $20 million payment on January 1st next year.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Uefa to boycott World Cup if Fifa plans go through to sell stakes to private investorsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Fifa needs a simple majority of its 211 members to adopt the proposal, but a boycott by European nations would decimate the commercial value of all Fifa competitions and may force a climbdown. In a further major blow to Infantino\u2019s plans, all 41 member nations of North American confederation Concacaf have confirmed they are rejecting the plans, though stopped short of a boycott. Fifa has yet to comment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Football Association of Ireland supports Uefa along with all member associations in rejecting Fifa\u2019s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the Fifa World Cup and other Fifa competitions to private investors,\u201d read an FAI statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe association believes that decisions of this significance must be founded on strong governance, transparency and meaningful consultation. In solidarity with Uefa\u2019s position, Ireland\u2019s national teams will not participate in Fifa competitions while these proposals remain under consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018This crosses a line\u2019: Uefa furious at Fifa\u2019s World Cup private investment planOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s next involvement in Fifa competition is the 2027 women\u2019s World Cup play-off against Kazakhstan on October 7th. It is understood that the FAI will continue preparations for the game as normal in the hope the dispute is resolved soon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Football Association of Ireland is joining the rest of Uefa\u2019s national associations in boycotting all Fifa competitions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2956,13446,53114,61,60,3405,112,30918,4018],"class_list":["post-576141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-fifa","tag-football-association-of-ireland-fai","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-uefa","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}