Fifa scraps World Cup stake sale plan after adviser resigns
En resumen
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has abandoned his plan to sell World Cup stakes for $4.2 billion in private funding, hours after senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro resigned, calling it a "bad deal for football." The proposal, which involved a subsidiary and private investors, had faced widespread condemnation.
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Por qué importa
FIFA President Gianni Infantino had proposed selling up to a 20% stake in a $20 billion subsidiary to private investors to run the World Cup and other events, aiming to raise $4.2 billion.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino has scrapped his divisive plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup, hours after a senior adviser quit over the “bad deal for football”.
In a statement released early on Saturday, Infantino acknowledged that his Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) move to raise US$4.2 billion in private funding had “created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place”.
Infantino had proposed creating a US$20 billion subsidiary to run the World Cup and other events, with a stake of up to 20 per cent to be offered to private investors.
The lead investor would be a New York-based firm created by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Earlier, Carlos Cordeiro, a top adviser to the Fifa boss and a former Goldman Sachs banker who served on the White House World Cup Task Force, resigned, the latest show of opposition to a plan that had been widely condemned throughout the game.
“Let me be clear,” Cordeiro said in a statement. “I had no involvement in this proposal, and I oppose it unequivocally. It is a bad deal for Fifa’s member associations, a bad deal for football and a bad deal for the long-term future of the game.
Preguntas abiertas
- What alternative funding strategies will FIFA pursue?
- How will FIFA address the divisions caused by this proposal?
