FIFA at the Crossroads: The Buried World Cup Sell-Off Plan and the Battle to Reshape Power

A commercial rights plan tied to the World Cup was abandoned a month ago. No press release, no explanation, no document published. Only silence — and that silence is now the centrepiece of FIFA's biggest power struggle since the 2026 reform wave.

Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, wrote to all 211 member associations on Monday announcing an upcoming governance review. The letter was framed as a consensual step, "well received". But behind closed doors, a FIFA council member put it bluntly: this is an attempt to avoid personal scrutiny.

The central question is not whether a review happens. It is the scope of that review — whether it only looks forward, or is forced to look back. Here is the crux: a forward-only review means today's decision-makers carry no accountability risk whatsoever.

The abandoned scheme is called the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) — a proposal to sell or privatise a revenue stream tied to FIFA's tournaments. No valuation figure was published. No investor identities. No terms emerged before it was withdrawn. Debbie Hewitt, chair of the English FA, has demanded the release of all documents relating to the FFE scheme. That demand has so far gone unanswered.

Parallel to the FFE is another story, smaller procedurally but heavier in principle. Balogun's suspension from the World Cup last-32 tie against Belgium was lifted — after a phone call from former US President Donald Trump to Infantino. A disciplinary decision being altered by external political intervention raises a direct question about competitive integrity. A council member said any review lacking retrospective analysis of both the FFE and the Balogun affair would lack credibility.

The fight over the "terms of reference" — the scope and mandate of the review — is not a dry procedural dispute. It is the field on which real power is measured. The FIFA Council comprises 28 confederation representatives, 8 vice-presidents, the president and the secretary general. Within that structure, the Europe-led opposition bloc — backed by AFC and CONCACAF — holds 21 of 38 seats. That number sounds like an overwhelming majority.

But here is a lesson straight from the pitch: controlling possession does not mean scoring. An earlier attempt to convene an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to force FIFA to widen the review scope failed — falling short of the 19 votes required. The opposition bloc's paper majority does not convert into real ballots. This exposes a blunt reality: federations do not vote by geography, they vote by interest. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia have publicly backed Infantino. Gulf and Asian support is precisely the counterweight that drains the 21 seats of their weight.

There is a sharp divergence between official messaging and what happens inside. Infantino speaks of "positive messages from different parts of the world" — the language of consensus-building. Council members describe an "internal battle". Bernd Neuendorf, president of the German federation, calls the review a "transparent ploy" — the sharpest phrase and one likely to anchor the coming media frame.

What stands out is the timing. The review was announced before Infantino's re-election campaign next year. This is precisely why opponents brand it "cynical electioneering". When a governance review is initiated by the man seeking another term, its independence becomes an unavoidable question.

15 October — the council meeting in Zurich — is the next decisive event. There, members will vote on the review's scope. The result is forecast to be very tight. A ballot tilting toward retrospective inclusion could force the FFE and the Balogun affair onto the analysis table. A ballot the other way buries them once more.

From the vantage point of someone who follows women's sport, I recognise a familiar pattern. Decisions at the highest level are always presented as technically neutral, while their consequences fall on those with the least voice. When a tournament's commercial revenue stream is traded behind closed doors, the question is not only who benefits, but who is left out. Women's competitions, already struggling with sponsorship and empty stands, are usually the last to be consulted in revenue-restructuring decisions.

The Balogun affair, small as it is, sets a large precedent. If a phone call from a head of state can change a World Cup disciplinary sanction, then the border between football and politics has been blurred at the very place that should be most transparent. This precedent does not stay in one match. It transmits downstream: organisers, sponsors, broadcasters — all of whom price contracts on predictability and rule-of-law consistency.

Deeper still, what is happening at FIFA is a three-layer power structure. Member associations upstream. The Council and governance machinery midstream. And the commercial ecosystem — investors, sponsors, geopolitical networks — downstream. When the midstream destabilises, every downstream flow is affected, and the impact is uneven. Academies and talent chains are barely touched in the short term. But broadcast and commercial channels must immediately factor in a governance risk premium.

What makes this situation more serious than a routine procedural quarrel is the combination of three elements. First, concerns over competitive integrity. Second, concerns over financial transparency. Third, electoral-cycle manoeuvring. This triad touches FIFA's credibility as an institution directly.

One detail worth pausing on: anonymous council-member briefings may be part of a deliberate leak strategy to build pressure before the 15 October meeting. In sports politics, leaks are not accidents — they are weapons. And that both sides use them shows neither is confident of holding the vote.

I do not stand at the centre of the pitch. I stand where the boundary begins to imagine. From there, what I see most clearly is not a battle between good and bad people, but a system asking itself whether it has the courage to look back at itself. A review that looks forward is a review that never has to answer the questions of the past. And at FIFA, the past is always where the hardest questions remain.

The real question is not whether Infantino keeps his seat. He has agenda-setting power, and that power is the strongest tool in his hands. The question is whether this match produces a precedent clear enough that future disputes cannot be buried by a review that only looks one way.