According to the latest report from Martin Ziegler, chief football correspondent for The Times, Gianni Infantino has set September 19 as the deadline for associations to approve the sale plan. If approved, the plan will be worth $10 billion; if not approved, it will be worth $2.7 billion.
According to reports, Gianni Infantino is pitching a radical plan to his 211 affiliated associations worldwide: to create a new commercial holding company that will package all commercial rights to top-tier events such as the Men's and Women's World Cups and the Club World Cup, and to sell a 20%-30% minority stake to private capital. The project is valued at £15 billion.
Infantino has sent letters to all of his affiliated associations offering huge incentives: each association can receive a one-time subsidy of $40 million if they agree to the privatization plan. The deadline for signing is September 19, leaving only 53 days for consideration.
In the letter, he calculated the potential benefits for each football association: if the proposal is unanimously approved, all associations can share a total of $10 billion; if they collectively reject it, the total revenue to be distributed in the future will only be $2.7 billion, thus pressuring national football associations to compromise.
The main entity in this transaction is a new company codenamed "FIFA Development Enterprise (FFE)" within FIFA, which will have full control over all commercial rights of FIFA's top-level competitions; FIFA will retain a controlling stake, while external capital will hold only a minority stake.
American Rising Capital will lead the investment; the firm is headed by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner; JPMorgan Chase has been appointed as the financial advisor for the deal.
Multiple sources deny that the White House directly intervened in the deal, but Infantino has been heavily criticized for deliberately getting close to Trump during the 2026 USA-Canadian World Cup – Trump even personally intervened to overturn the red card suspension of US national team player Balogun.
If the equity sale plan is approved, FIFA plans to expand the World Cup, breaking the long-standing tradition of holding it every four years and significantly increasing the frequency of the competition. The Women's World Cup and the Club World Cup will also have their hosting cycles shortened to maximize the return on capital.
