Fifa faces backlash over proposed World Cup sell-off
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peach and at 15 hours GMT on Wednesday the 29th of July, these are our main stories. There's more backlash after FIFA's plans to sell stakes in its football competitions. Fighting resumes between the US and Iran with 20 members of an Iraqi militia reported killed. Russia charges the founder of Telegram with facilitating terrorist activities. Also in this podcast, the Hollywood star Jared Leto faces allegations of criminal sexual conduct by four women who were teenagers at the time. And we hear what happened at an equestrian centre that was caught up in the fires in southwest France.
All around the stables, everything is burned. In fact, the horses are very clever because they decided to go where people had been evacuated and it was a safe place.
Let's start with the backlash sparked by FIFA's proposal to sell stakes in its major competitions, including the World Cup. As we reported in our earlier podcast, FIFA is arguing that the plan would allow all nations to share in the riches that can be created by football. But the European Football Association, UEFA, has described it as an attempt to sell football's soul. and the EU sports chief, Glenn Mickleff, called it the relentless and corrosive commercialisation of the game. This was the reaction of David Bernstein, former chairman of the English Football Association and Manchester City. Well, I think the whole thing is absolutely dreadful. It's totally unacceptable. The feel of cronyism, nepotism.
It sort of stinks, frankly, and I would totally support UEFA, the FA, the Prime Minister and so on in their criticism. Let's get more on this from Mike McCarthy of BBC Sport. FIFA wants to create a company that would take over the commercial side of its major competitions. The idea is that body would be responsible for things like TV rights, ticket sales, sponsorship for the Men's and Women's World Cup and the Club World Cup as well. FIFA would then sell stakes in that company to private investors. It says doing that can generate billions of dollars which can be shared among its members and that money would in theory be used for football development projects around the world. It feels like everyone hates it, do they?
Well, as you mentioned, UEFA were first out of the blocks, saying that FIFA had crossed the line. They have since been joined by CONCACAF, which governs football in North America, and the equivalent body in Asia, the AFC. They both criticised the lack of consultation that they've had about the plans. fear from UEFA is if private investors were involved in the World Cup they are likely to want more teams in the competition and perhaps the World Cup to take place more regularly than every four years so it generates more money the same would likely be true of the Club World Cup and UEFA is clearly concerned about the impact that that would have on the value of their own competitions such as the Champions League and the European Championship and the Football Canada in general as well
What's the likelihood of FIFA and Gianni Infantino in particular being able to get this through, even though there is such a level of criticism from other parts of the football world? Yeah, well, UEFA have been the strongest critics, but they only represent about a quarter of FIFA's 211 members. The way voting in FIFA works, every country gets one vote.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–12:34
2
What is FIFA proposing to do with its competitions and why is it controversial?
12:34–17:19
3
How would selling stakes in a FIFA commercial company affect World Cup format and TV rights?
17:19–20:02
4
Who is opposing FIFA’s plan and could a European boycott stop the deal?
20:02–28:35
5
What triggered the renewed US–Iran strikes and which militia in Iraq was targeted?
28:35–30:58