{"id":734275,"date":"2026-08-11T06:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T06:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/734275\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T06:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T06:32:10","slug":"us-president-donald-trump-issues-backing-for-under-pressure-fifa-chief-gianni-infantino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/734275\/","title":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump issues backing for under pressure Fifa chief Gianni Infantino"},"content":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump says it would be a “terrible mistake” if under pressure Fifa president Gianni Infantino was ousted from his position.<\/p>\n

Trump’s backing followed Uefa, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) issuing an open letter<\/a> accusing Infantino of breaking trust “through deception” with his aborted Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal.<\/p>\n

FFE would have meant a new company being created to manage commercial and ticketing rights of all Fifa competitions, including World Cups, with 21% sold off to a private investment company.<\/p>\n

Trump’s comments are the first time he has come out in defence of Infantino since the FFE plans came to light on 28 July.<\/p>\n

“Fifa would be making a terrible mistake if, for any reason, they even considered replacing president Gianni Infantino,” Trump wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

“He is fantastic, having just presided over the most successful World Cup, by four times, ever presented. If he is gone, it will never be as successful or profitable again.”<\/p>\n

The 2026 World Cup was co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico this summer, with Spain crowned champions after beating Argentina in the final.<\/p>\n

When addressing the FFE proposals for the first time on 31 July, Trump said<\/a> he had not spoken to Infantino about the plans.<\/p>\n

Thrive Eternal was expected to lead the proposed investor group for FFE.<\/p>\n

Thrive is an American venture capital firm founded by Joshua Kushner – the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared.<\/p>\n

Infantino has a close relationship with Trump and awarded him the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize in December 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump says it would be a “terrible mistake” if under pressure Fifa president Gianni Infantino…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-734275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}