FIFA Refuse to Back Down Despite UEFA Boycott
FIFA is refusing to back down with its proposals to sell off stakes in its major tournaments to private investors, despite the threat of a boycott from UEFA nations. Who will blink first in this footballing controversy? We have our say.
Video Transcript
Wow, that really escalated quickly.
I mean, it really got out of hand and so it should get out of hand as well.
So the reactions to FIFA's plans to effectively sell off part of the World Cup tournament to private investors, so that should get some strong reactions, particularly from the European clubs, of course, administered by UEFA, who have agreed to boycott FIFA competitions if this plan goes ahead.
Now, many people are missing the point when it comes to this.
Many people are saying, "Well, this isn't gonna affect anybody until 2030.
There's plenty of time for FIFA to do this and get it ingrained, and then there basically there'll be no repercussions for it.
Are the European clubs really gonna boycott the World Cup?
I don't think so."
Well, these people who are saying things like that I think are completely missing the point.
The first one being that the next major FIFA tournament is next summer, the World Cup for women in 2027, taking place in Brazil.
And of course, who is co-hosting the next men's World Cup as well?
Spain and Portugal.
They are UEFA nations.
How is it gonna work when UEFA nations are boycotting the World Cup, but they're also co-hosting the tournament?
Would it just move completely to Morocco?
I don't think they could do that, to be honest.
So a lot of question marks there.
UEFA clubs are not backing down on this.
They have formed a united front.
They have all met and all voted pretty much.
I'll show you the article here very quickly on The Guardian, but they've all basically met and decided, "No, we don't want any part of this.
This is completely wrong.
We are going to boycott FIFA competitions."
And the first competition that would actually be affected would be the Under 20 Women's World Cup, which, okay, is not exactly a powerhouse of international football, but it is taking place this September in Poland.
So this is the first kind of hurdle for this.
Are they actually gonna follow through on this boycott?
Well, I think they will do if FIFA don't back down.
But FIFA, what have they been saying about this?
How have they responded to the European clubs saying, "Yeah, no, we don't want any part of this.
This is ridiculous.
This is not football"?
Well, Gianni Infantino has rather predictably and sadly doubled down on it.
He has said, quote, "Nobody selling football."
End quote.
Well, you're trying to, mate, and you're still pressing on ahead with this.
Let's have a look at the full article here on BBC Sport.
This was literally published just a few hours ago.
This is hot off the press, as it were.
Let's have a look at what Gianni Sycophantino has had to say about football and what this is gonna mean for arguably one of the biggest controversies in the history of the beautiful game.
Let's have a look.
FIFA has said that nobody is selling football, as it vowed to continue with the controversial plan to sell stakes in its competition to private investors.
UEFA, the body that governs European football, voted on Thursday to boycott World Cups if the plan goes ahead.
CONCACAF, which governs football in both North and Central America and hosted this year's World Cup, said its 41 member associations have also rejected the proposal made by FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
If any of those confederations was going to approve it, it was going to be CONCACAF, where the United States are, where the other co-hosts of the last tournament, Canada and Mexico, are, where historically there has been a lot of corruption when it comes to the days of Sepp Blatter.
So even they are saying, "No, we don't want any part in this."
FIFA oversees world football, and Infantino would need 106 of its 211 members to vote in favor for the proposal to go through.
UEFA and CONCACAF members combined make up 96 of those votes, so that is almost a voting bloc that's big enough to stop this straightaway.
That's without even asking the members of Asia, South America, and Africa, as well as Oceania, of course, too.
In a statement released today, FIFA claimed the consultation process had been disrupted by incorrect media reports.
Sure.
They said, quote, "We respect the feedback and concern aired in public and reaffirm our commitment to an open and democratic consultation."
I mean, this could be straight out of the playbook of North Korea or Zimbabwe or, or China or somewhere like that.
You know, we respect democracy.
Or Russia.
We respect democracy, right?
We respect our complete democratic process.
But there's nothing open or democratic about any of this.
It's closed off and dictatorial.
He wants to be a dictator, Fi- Infantino.
He wants to be like Trump wants to be.
He wants to be like what Putin is, you know?
He wants to be that kinda guy.
But FIFA, I would like to think, would not allow it.
Even Sepp Blatter didn't achieve this level of notoriety And that guy was an absolute wrong 'un, to say the very least.
Even he speaks out and says that Infantino is completely in the wrong here, which cynics might, of course he would say that, he's got his old job.
But I think Blatter's absolutely correct in what he says about Infantino.
Not that it negates any of the bad stuff that he did.
He very much sowed the seeds, you know.
He, he walked so Infantino could run when it came to corruption, but that doesn't excuse it by any means.
"We will proceed with this consultation process to ensure that each MA, member association, has the ability to express its vote based on facts.
Nobody is selling football.
This is not something FIFA would ever entertain."
End quote.
Really?
Really?
Well, this, this'll definitely come back to bite them when they do, 'cause they are trying to by all accounts.
And if you missed the news from my previous video about what FIFA are trying to do, let me just briefly explain on here.
FIFA is a registered charity.
They are a non-profit organization, so any money that they make has to go back into the growing of the game in football.
However, they want to create a commercial subsidiary to run its main events, including the World Cup, and they want external investors to be able to buy stakes in it.
Like, for example, Josh Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, who of course is married into the Trump family, so you see where the concerns around corruption very much come from.
It's not totally unfounded by any stretch of the imagination.
And JP Morgan are also wanting to get involved as well, one of the biggest investment firms in the United States.
So they're wanting to sell off the sport to the Americans.
Yes, FIFA itself will remain as it is, a charity, a non-profit officially, but when it comes to the running of the tournaments, it'll be totally for-profit, totally going towards the shareholders and not getting all that reinvested back into football.
So a lot of the increases and the gains that we've seen in the smaller associations, the likes of Cape Verde, the likes of Curaao making the World Cup, the rate of growth that we have seen arguably, I would say, will definitely decrease under these plans because some of that money, instead of going towards the game, will go towards private investors as well.
Will go towards shareholders, and anybody knows that when shareholders get involved and it's purely about profit, things don't really work out very well.
Look at what has happened with our water companies here in the UK, for example.
It's been an absolute disaster, and it would be a disaster for football as well.
However, they would make a lot of money doing it, so it wouldn't be a disaster for the people running it and having the say, would it?
And it's not just Europe and North America that are opposed to this as well.
Other member associations have had their say, too.
For example, the Asian Football Confederation, the AFC, said that it is, "Deeply concerned that FIFA's unilateral actions appear to undermine the very foundations of continental football."
And they also said it was unacceptable that it had not been consulted before the proposal was publicly announced, nor provided with detailed governance, financial or legal analysis.
CONMEBOL, the organization that oversees South American football, has declined to comment at the moment, and the governing bodies of Africa and Oceania say they will discuss this further later on.
So what happens next?
Well, Simon Stone outlines this on the BBC here, and not really much is gonna happen until that funding deal is either accepted or declined by every member nation of FIFA.
The deadline is the 19th of September, and they've effectively been offered a bit of a bribe, in a sense, of 20 million US dollars, around 15 million pounds, that'll come into their bank accounts by the 1st of January next year.
And it's not just the Under-20s Women's World Cup, either.
Obviously, we've got the World Cup qualifying that'll be coming through in a few years.
We've also got the rest of the qualification phase for the Women's World Cup in 2027.
Those games are taking place in October, and four of the five home nations, as it were, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, are all taking part in those.
So be very fascinating to see what happens there as well, because that's a major tournament.
The Women's World Cup gets a lot of eyeballs on it, the senior version, that is.
The Under-20s, not so much, but the senior one.
What happens if they boycott the qualifiers?
Do they just not get qualified?
Does the tournament not have a full complement of 32 teams?
It's gonna be interesting, for sure.
But can Infantino continue on?
I would like to think there would be a coup after this.
I mean, he was expected to run unopposed, but maybe someone now will actually try and topple him because all you have to do is promise not to do this, and you'll get the support of basically every country in the world.
What little faith that a lot of these countries had in Infantino now must be completely eroded away.
So I think if somebody, if somebody has the cojones to try and run against Infantino, I think they'll win.
I think they'll win.
Hell, get Sepp Blatter back.
Bring him back.
At least he didn't try and do this.
You know, honestly, at this point, I'd take Sepp Blatter, but I'd like someone else, someone who's hopefully less corrupt because Infantino, some people say that he started with good intentions, you know, the, the road to the worst of things starts with the best of intentions, you know, that kind of phrase.
It very much applies to him.
Even if he did start with the best of intentions, he's been completely corrupted beyond any recognition now, and he can't continue.
This cannot continue, but it has to require someone to run against him, otherwise he'll be a reelected official once again, completely unopposed.
But get your thoughts in the comments below about all this, guys.
Where do we go from here?
Will UEFA boycott the World Cup?
Will they boycott that Women's World Cup in just a few months' time?
Let me know down below.
Like, share, comment, subscribe, as always, and we'll see you soon for much more content on the world of football.
Man, it's getting real interesting as we head into this week.
Who said the off-season's boring?
We've got plenty of dramas going on right now, and no doubt some courtroom dramas as well eventually, too
