Is football’s soul for sale? Infantino tries to cash in on the World Cup – The Latest
episodePreviously titled “Infantino cashing in on World Cup: is football’s soul for sale? – The Latest” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 24, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
This is Infantino's FIFA, and this is the way that Infantino believes that the sport should be run. And really, at the World Cup, you felt there was money flying. Wherever you went, there's something nebulous about FIFA. Infantino himself is effectively homeless. He flies around the world on a private jet, glad-handing dignitaries. Where do you catch him? He's rattled. You can tell that he knows that lots of people out there don't buy what he's selling.
From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. So less than a fortnight after the conclusion of this year's World Cup, which took place in the United States, in Canada and in Mexico, FIFA's president, Gianni Infantino, is looking to cash in on football's new global popularity. Paul McInnes, you're a reporter for The Guardian who's been covering this story for us. What is the scope of what he's putting forward in terms of this new financial model?
Well,
There's two ways you can answer that question. The first is to say the scope is a repositioning of FIFA's functions. So it's going to take all its commercial operations and the part of FIFA that organises and runs World Cups to centrally organise everything, make everything more efficient, put best of class people in there and ramp up revenues even further than the 15 billion that they've taken over the last four year cycle. That's one way of looking at it.
That sounds like the press release.
Yeah.
The other way of looking at it is nobody really knows because it was this announcement which FIFA made yesterday. They were bounced into doing it by reporting in the Times and the Financial Times. And the details are limited to the extent of a press release that they've put out. And so we don't really know what will happen. We don't really know the rules which will guide this. what happens or the process by which we get to there. What we do know, however, is that indisputably up to 25% of this organisation will be sold on to private investors.
We do know a little bit about the people that might be involved in that private equity. And there is the surname Kushner involved, although not the Kushner that you might be thinking of, Jared Trump's son-in-law, but another one.
It's Joshua, not Jared. But I got a phone call very quickly after the news yesterday saying, We want to point out that not all Kushners are the same. And this Kushner is a democratic supporting Kushner with a long track record of investment in entirely ethical tech properties. So don't worry. But I think this is why these two ways of looking at it becomes interesting. Because if you take it at face value, fine. But then if you look at everything else that's been going on with Infantino and his proximity to the Trump family, in particular, not just Donald Trump, but Jared Kushner, And you kind of think, well, it looks like there might be something dodgy going on here, but we can't know whether there's anything dodgy or not because nothing's been published about how this thing will actually work and any transparency as to what will actually happen.
Yeah, that's really interesting and much more to be reported on and hopefully that will emerge in the coming weeks. But there has been an immediate backlash to this, you know, this idea that this is selling the soul of football to private equity.
What is FIFA proposing by selling stakes in the World Cup to private investors?
It reminded me a bit of the European Super League, which was announced in 2021, which was this idea that there would be a separate league that would break away as a rival to existing UEFA competitions, which would obviously have consequences. Huge implications for the Premier League and for the Champions League that was met with such backlash that it was scrapped kind of within days. Tell me about some of the backlash that we're already seeing, because it's coming not just from fans, but also from other football organisations.
Yes, we are seeing backlash. We are seeing UEFA stepping up to speak out against this. UEFA organises European football. UEFA's nations, competing nations like England, Spain, France, but also the clubs that play within its framework, generate pretty much 90% of all the revenue in world football.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:27
2
What is FIFA proposing by selling stakes in the World Cup to private investors?
3:27–9:27
3
How much of FIFA could be sold and what details are currently disclosed?
9:27–10:07
4
Who is Joshua Kushner and why is his involvement notable for FIFA investments?
10:07–12:02
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Today in Focus
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