Even for Gianni Infantino it was too much. Yes, that same Gianni Infantino – receiver of the Order of Friendship of the Russian Federation, creator of the inaugural “Fifa Peace Prize” awarded to Donald Trump. Even for Infantino, the executive of football’s global governing body, carving up and selling off the World Cup to private investors was a step too far.
The plan was astounding. He would create a new commercial entity, which would control the rights to the World Cup. Stakes in this new body would then be sold to an investment group led by a man called Joshua Kushner, who just happened to be the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Football’s continental federations – Uefa for Europe, Conmebol for South America, and so on – were given an ultimatum: accept the deal within two months or lose out on millions in potential funding.
An extraordinary week followed. Two members of Infantino’s inner circle resigned and Uefa announced a boycott of all Fifa competitions until the plan was abandoned.
On 31 July, Fifa published a late-night statement insisting “nobody is selling football” – while trying to do just that. A few days later, Infantino backed down and accepted defeat and humiliation. His presidency now teeters.
It would be easy to dismiss Infantino’s grand designs as mere hubris mixed with greed. Surely even he could foresee the backlash? But why wouldn’t he assume this latest effort to commodify the world’s most popular sport would be rubber-stamped? All the others were. This year’s American World Cup generated revenues of $15bn. It is hardly surprising that rich men have seen an opportunity to become even richer. Yes, the fans might complain about football selling its soul, but their agonised moans about exploitative ticket prices and games played in quarters instead of halves (so that Fox Sports could show more ads) were already successfully ignored. So was the decision to suspend a red card for the American team’s star striker following an intervention from President Trump.
It is comforting to believe Infantino has merely caught some terrible affliction caused by prolonged exposure to American capitalism. The Athletic reports Infantino has developed a fixation with the salaries of US sports league commissioners, who earn tens of millions of dollars per year compared to his paltry $6m. In truth, football sold its soul long ago. The sport is not so much greased by money as swimming in it, obsessed with it. Football grounds are no longer temples made for communal worship but boxes in which fans are sold things and surveilled. If we want to look for the source of this great commercial pollution, we need to look far closer to home than we usually care to admit.
Infantino is the product of decades of commercial evolution. The creation of the Premier League in 1992 bound English football to the economics of satellite TV and sports betting. Europe’s Champions League, football’s most prestigious club competition, was colloquially known as the Gazprom among fans because of the Russian oil company’s long-running sponsorship. That is, up until Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine.
The Premier League’s first domestic television deal was worth £304m over five years. Today it is worth 22 times more: £6.7bn, across four seasons, before international rights even factor. Manchester United trades on the New York Stock Exchange. Private equity firms have poured into clubs. American ownership, once a curiosity, has become commonplace across England’s top two divisions. As a Birmingham City fan, I know this well. We were once owned by a Hong Kong millionaire, before he was disappeared into the Chinese legal system on money laundering charges. We are now owned by an American billionaire who broke the third-tier transfer record to spend £15m on a striker and buy the league.
Don’t think you’re at a stadium to watch a match, either – you are there to consume. Hospitality is one of football’s fastest-growing revenue streams. Clubs are replacing ordinary seats with premium lounges and corporate boxes capable of generating many times the income per spectator. At the World Cup final, $1m ticket packages included a helicopter ride to the stadium and “on-the-pitch” seats. Every surface sells something. There are sleeve sponsors. Your club might opt for a betting firm, a cryptocurrency exchange, or an official noodle partner.
Not only that: consumption is now surveilled in great detail. Your time inside the stadium will be covered by a dense network of CCTV cameras. Live facial recognition at high-profile fixtures and dedicated football units that monitor fan groups year-round, support increasingly sophisticated police intelligence operations. While much of this emerged in response to real violence and disorder, it also reflects a broader transformation. Attending a football match has become one of the most heavily monitored leisure activities in Britain.
In this context, Infantino’s embrace of Trump, Saudi Arabia (the 2034 World Cup host), and whichever market promises the next TV audience, is the logical conclusion of the current trajectory. Fifa’s president did not invent the game’s commodification. He merely abandoned the pretence. He should resign, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves about how we got here.
Listen to Zach Sweeney-Lynch in conversation with Oli Dugmore on our interview podcast The Exchange
[Further reading: Watching Mayo win, I said goodbye to Ireland]
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This article appears in the 05 Aug 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Europe's shame
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