Fifa World Cup sell-off LIVE: Infantino officially scraps controversial plan but future as Fifa president in jeopardy

Gianni Infantino has abandoned his plan to sell minority stakes in the World Cup after UEFA’s executive committee voted to boycott the tournament and every other FIFA competition if the proposals reached a vote. The volte-face came late on Friday, hours after FIFA’s chief operating officer accused Infantino of deceiving staff over the privatisation scheme and a long-serving adviser resigned in protest. The president’s position now hangs by a thread as federations across the globe demand his resignation, while Donald Trump—whose administration has close ties to the Kushner family—denied any involvement in the investor group that would have taken control of FIFA’s marquee event.

How the sell-off unravelled in 72 hours

On Tuesday, FIFA’s council approved a framework that would have allowed private investors to buy up to 49 per cent of the World Cup’s commercial rights. The move was framed as a way to unlock “billions in new revenue,” but within 48 hours the plan had collapsed under the weight of cross-continental opposition. UEFA’s threat to pull every European nation from the World Cup and all other FIFA tournaments—World Cup qualifiers, Club World Cup, FIFA tournaments at youth and amateur levels—proved decisive. Sources inside UEFA’s emergency meeting in Nyon confirmed the boycott would have started within 14 days if the privatisation vote had gone ahead.

The first domino fell on Thursday when Carlos Cordeiro, Infantino’s long-time adviser and a senior FIFA council member, resigned in protest. Cordeiro’s departure was followed on Friday by a statement from FIFA’s chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, who told the Associated Press that staff had been “deceived” over the scale and speed of the proposals. Lamour, two rungs below Infantino in the hierarchy, said the administration could no longer “fulfil its mission” under the current conditions and warned that many colleagues no longer felt proud to work for FIFA. His unusually personal intervention signalled the depth of internal revolt.

What Infantino lost—and who still stands to gain

Infantino’s retreat leaves the World Cup’s commercial model unchanged, but the political damage is severe. The president had argued that privatisation would “future-proof” FIFA’s finances, yet the episode has exposed fractures within his own executive. Lamour’s public rebuke—”today, unfortunately, it seems that is no longer the case for many of us”—undercuts any claim that the administration speaks with one voice. Meanwhile, Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that he had not discussed the proposals with Infantino, despite widespread speculation that Josh Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, would lead the investor consortium. The denial distances the White House from a scheme that now carries the stench of impropriety.

The immediate beneficiary is UEFA, which has emerged as the de facto opposition leader in world football governance. Its threat of a continent-wide boycott forced Infantino to shelve the plan without a vote, a humiliation that strips the president of the aura of inevitability he has cultivated since 2016. Yet UEFA’s victory is also pyrrhic: the federation has burned political capital to protect a tournament it cannot afford to miss, while leaving Infantino weakened rather than removed. The question now is whether the federations that backed UEFA will press for his resignation or settle for symbolic concessions.

The road ahead: resignation, reform, or stalemate

Infantino’s presidency has been defined by brinkmanship—extending his term unopposed, brokering a controversial Club World Cup expansion, and now attempting to sell the family silver. Each time, he has gambled that his opponents lack the unity to force him out. This week, that gamble failed. Yet the mechanisms to remove him remain cumbersome: FIFA’s member associations would need to trigger an extraordinary congress, a process that can stretch to six months. In the interim, the organisation’s reputation has taken another battering, with Lamour’s statement confirming that morale inside FIFA headquarters is at an all-time low.

Reformers inside FIFA’s member associations are already coalescing around two demands: an independent ethics review of the privatisation process and a binding vote on term limits for the presidency. Neither is guaranteed to pass, but the fact they are being discussed at all marks a shift from the deferential culture that has prevailed since Infantino’s election. The next FIFA congress is scheduled for May in Bangkok; if the federations arrive with a united front, the president may find himself fighting for his political survival rather than dictating the agenda.

For now, the World Cup remains in safe hands—at least commercially. But the episode has revealed a governing body on the brink of institutional paralysis. Infantino’s climbdown is not an apology; it is a tactical retreat in the face of overwhelming opposition. The real test will come when the federations reconvene and decide whether to accept a weakened president or risk the chaos of an open contest. The next 90 days may determine whether FIFA survives this crisis with its credibility intact—or whether the sell-off becomes the first act of a much longer unravelling.