FIFA scraps its plan to sell a World Cup stake to private investors as Infantino's senior adviser resigns

Football's world governing body, FIFA, said late on Friday, 31 July 2026, that it will not proceed with its plan to sell part of its business to outside investors. Under the proposal, first announced on Tuesday 28 July, FIFA had intended to raise up to $4.2 billion by selling about a 20 percent stake in a new unit that would have run the body's events including the World Cup, a unit valued at $20 billion.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a statement: "Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place," adding that the proposal would not proceed. European football's governing body, UEFA, had voted on Thursday 30 July to boycott FIFA competitions, and said in a statement that it was "irresponsible and indefensible" that a proposal of such significance was conceived in secret.

Earlier on Friday, before the plan was dropped, Infantino's senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro resigned with immediate effect, calling it "a bad deal for football". FIFA Chief Operating Officer Kevin Lamour said staff had been "deceived" by Infantino and described the proposal as "a project of one person". The investment was expected to be led by the Thrive Eternal fund, run by Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump. Trump said at Camp David on Friday that he had not spoken to Infantino about the matter. The Asian Football Confederation called for an urgent review of FIFA's governance framework. The FIFA presidential election takes place in Morocco on 18 March next year, with a candidate declaration deadline of 18 November.