Pressure is mounting on FIFA president Gianni Infantino after his senior adviser resigned over plans to sell a stake in a World Cup company to private investors.<\/p>\n
Infantino’s plan has been rejected by the European and Asian confederations, as well as the one representing nations from North and Central America and the Caribbean. European nations have said they will not play in FIFA competitions until the project is scrapped.<\/p>\n
Now Carlos Cordeiro has quit his role as an adviser to Infantino, describing the plans to create FIFA Forward Enterprise as a “bad deal for football”.<\/p>\n
“Football has been central to my life and after more than 35 years in banking, I understand both the value of this asset and the consequences of giving part of it away. That is why this proposal should be rejected,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Cordeiro’s resignation came hours after FIFA’s controversial plan was dealt a major blow when the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) joined UEFA and CONCACAF in rejecting it.<\/p>\n
The AFC statement highlighted “fundamental weaknesses in FIFA\u2019s consultation and decision-making processes that must now be addressed”.<\/p>\n
It’s understood the 41 nations that make up CONCACAF, the confederation for North and Central America plus the Caribbean, are losing \u2013 or have lost \u2013 confidence in Infantino, while UEFA says it will boycott FIFA competitions until the plan is dropped.<\/p>\n
The Swiss said the plans to create a new company to run the World Cup and FIFA\u2019s other competitions would require a majority of FIFA\u2019s 211 member associations. Collective opposition from AFC\u2019s 47 members, added to CONCACAF\u2019s 41 and UEFA\u2019s 55, would mean 143 now stand against it.<\/p>\n
AFC’s statement, as UEFA\u2019s did, highlighted the fact that until media reports emerged on Tuesday, associations were unaware of the plans.<\/p>\n
“The AFC stands in solidarity with UEFA and CONCACAF in expressing serious concerns over FIFA\u2019s proposal to introduce private investment into FIFA\u2019s flagship competitions and the decision-making process around FFE,” it read.<\/p>\n
“The fact that the situation has reached the point where the real possibility of a FIFA World Cup boycott has entered public discourse should concern everyone who cares about the future of our game. Football should never have been placed in such a position.”<\/p>\n
“While the immediate debate centres on FFE, the AFC considers this issue extends far beyond a single proposal. Rather, it has exposed fundamental weaknesses in FIFA\u2019s consultation and decision-making processes that must now be addressed. While the AFC notes FIFA\u2019s latest clarification on the proposal, the central concerns surrounding governance, institutional process and meaningful consultation remain unanswered.”<\/p>\n
FIFA has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
FIFA had earlier said it would move forward with its consultation process to bring private investment into the World \u2060Cup and its other tournaments in defiance of a fierce UEFA-led backlash against the proposal.<\/p>\n
The world soccer governing body announced it planned to create a $20 billion (\u20ac17 billion) subsidiary to run the World Cup and its other events, offering external investors stakes of up to 20%.<\/p>\n
Under the plan, FIFA would establish FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to oversee \u200ccommercial and event \u2060operations.<\/p>\n
The proposal drew strong criticism from regional confederations, which said they had been blindsided by the plan to bring private investors into the sport.<\/p>\n
“Our planned consultation process was disrupted by incorrect media reports. We will proceed with this \u200cconsultation process to ensure that each MA (Member Association) has the ability to express its vote based \u2060on facts,” FIFA said in a statement this morning.<\/p>\n
European soccer’s governing \u200cbody UEFA, which accused FIFA of putting the sport’s “soul” up \u2060for sale, \u200cyesterday voted to boycott all FIFA tournaments, along with its 55 member nations.<\/p>\n
“Nobody is selling football. This is not something FIFA would ever entertain,” FIFA \u2060said.<\/p>\n
“Everyone has the right to express their opposition and to seek further \u2060clarification but no single entity can claim to represent all 211 MAs around the world.<\/p>\n
“Each MA should be allowed to review the proposal and have a say in shaping their own future. These are the democratic principles of FIFA,” it added.<\/p>\n
FIFA president Infantino has publicly backed the plan, with an investor group led by Thrive Eternal, founded by Joshua Kushner – the brother of US President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner – waiting in the wings to secure a minority stake in the new venture.<\/p>\n
However, promises of huge returns to national associations if FFE goes ahead could surely not be honoured if the men\u2019s and women\u2019s World Cups took place without European involvement, even if Mr Infantino could still muster majority support for FFE.<\/p>\n
Any European boycott would first impact the Women\u2019s Under-20 World Cup, due to be staged in Poland in September.<\/p>\n
The big FIFA event on the longer-term horizon though is the senior Women\u2019s World Cup in Brazil next summer, with qualifiers due to take place in the autumn. The Republic of Ireland are scheduled to face Kazakhstan in the first round of the play-offs, and then either Belgium or Poland in the final if they were to win.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the FAI issued a statement in which they affirmed their support for UEFA and confirmed that no Irish teams will compete in FIFA competitions until there’s a resolution.<\/p>\n
The statement read: “The Football Association of Ireland supports UEFA along with all member associations in rejecting FIFA’s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the FIFA World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors.<\/p>\n
“The Association believes that decisions of this significance must be founded on strong governance, transparency and meaningful consultation. In solidarity with UEFA’s position, Ireland’s national teams will not participate in FIFA competitions while these proposals remain under consideration.”<\/p>\n
Mr Infantino has said FFE would help “turbocharge” global football, and FIFA has maintained it would have sole control and ownership of FFE.<\/p>\n
Additional reporting: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pressure is mounting on FIFA president Gianni Infantino after his senior adviser resigned over plans to sell a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-577047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577047","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=577047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}