{"id":973446,"date":"2026-08-01T12:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/973446\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T12:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:10:15","slug":"uefa-says-it-has-lost-confidence-in-fifas-infantino-after-failed-private-equity-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/973446\/","title":{"rendered":"UEFA says it has lost confidence in FIFA’s Infantino after failed private equity plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

NYON, Switzerland (AP) \u2014 UEFA says it has lost confidence in FIFA President Gianni Infantino and that \u201cno option should be off the table\u201d as it will pursue a full review of his now abandoned plan to sell stakes of the World Cup<\/a> to private equity investors.<\/p>\n

Infantino was forced to scrap the plan early Saturday after his senior adviser who sat on a White House panel resigned<\/a> and Asia\u2019s soccer body joined Europe and North America in opposing it.<\/p>\n

Infantino had proposed creating a $20 billion company to run the World Cup<\/a> with private investors, but drew backlash that grew every day since Tuesday\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must identify those responsible and hold them to account,\u201d UEFA said on Saturday. \u201cNo option should be off the table. The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA\u2019s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governing body of European soccer, headed by Aleksander \u010ceferin, issued its blistering statement hours after FIFA announced it was withdrawing its private equity plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game,\u201d UEFA said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is right that, in the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again.\u201d<\/p>\n

UEFA\u2019s 55-member nations agreed to boycott the World Cup and all other FIFA competitions over Infantino\u2019s plan on Thursday. North America\u2019s CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation also said they opposed the plan.<\/p>\n

Infantino\u2019s senior adviser, Carlos Cordeiro<\/a>, a former Goldman Sachs banker who represented the soccer body on the White House Task Force for the World Cup<\/a>, resigned on Friday and urged other senior FIFA staff to speak out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot stand by while FIFA considers selling a stake in the World Cup,\u201d Cordeiro said in a statement, just hours after FIFA insisted: \u201cNobody is selling football.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hours later, FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour issued a statement to The Associated Press, saying FIFA staff were deceived by Infantino\u2019s lack of openness in planning the sale over recent months and that the project must not continue.<\/p>\n

Infantino has proposed spinning off FIFA\u2019s commercial businesses \u2014 including World Cups and Club World Cups for men and women \u2014 into a $20 billion subsidiary with 20% owned by private investors.<\/p>\n

The \u201canchor investor,\u201d described by FIFA, is a New York-based investment firm created by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. <\/p>\n

___ <\/p>\n

AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/a> and AP World Cup coverage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NYON, Switzerland (AP) \u2014 UEFA says it has lost confidence in FIFA President Gianni Infantino and that \u201cno…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":973447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[24120,389855,69,2034,6061,6072,17966,17967,390581,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-973446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aleksander-ceferin","tag-carlos-cordeiro","tag-donald-trump","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-jared-kushner","tag-joshua-kushner","tag-kevin-lamour","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}