UEFA to boycott World Cup in protest of Fifa’s private investors plan

UEFA member federations agreed on Thursday to boycott all Fifa competitions in protest of Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private equity investors.

“UEFA and its national associations will not participate in Fifa competitions,” the European football body said after an urgent online meeting of the 55 members.

“Some things are simply too important to sell,” UEFA said in a statement. “The Fifa World Cup belongs to football. It always will. And so long as Europe has a voice, it will never be for sale.”

The strategy meeting was called to counter Fifa president Infantino’s offer of US$20 million to each of Fifa’s 211 global members that has to be accepted by mid-September.

Infantino’s secret proposal was revealed on Tuesday to spin off its commercial operations in a new US$20 billion subsidiary 20 per cent owned by private investors. The core investor would be a New York investment firm created by Joshua Kushner, the brother of US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

“This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdication of Fifa’s duty as the custodian of world football,” said UEFA, where Infantino was a long-time staffer and its CEO-like general secretary when he was first elected to lead Fifa in 2016.