By Andrew Warshaw
October 23 – The global outcry surrounding Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi will be the elephant in the room when Gianni Infantino’s plans to radically change the game’s global landscape is discussed by the FIFA Council later this week.
Infantino’s highly contentious $25 billion proposal for two new tournaments – a revamped, expanded Club World Cup and a global Nations League – is back on the agenda for Friday’s Council meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, after several weeks of being on the back burner.
The FIFA president has been reluctant to divulge details of his pet project but the idea reportedly is that an international consortium would invest in the Nations League and the Club World Cup for the period 2021 to 2033, nominally run by FIFA which would have a 51% stake in the joint venture.
There is still no transparency on the funding for the project though all indicators point to Saudi backing, with a £2 billion prize pot on offer for the revised Club World Cup that would start in 2021. The second tournament would replace UEFA’s version of a similar competition for European countries that has just got under way and is proving to be a major success.
Infantino’s blueprint, which many sceptics suggest has been created so he can fulfil his election pledge to radically increase funding to FIFA members and ensure his re-election next May, has been tabled for Friday’s meeting under the item heading “future of competitions, FIFA Club World Cup, Nations League, Commercial strategy”.
Although it is not known what exactly Infantino will reveal, rumours persist that the consortium has Japanese conglomerate Softbank as a key player. City of London sources say Softbank is an investment front for Saudi money. Tongues therefore seem certain to wag if it is confirmed that the Saudis will indeed be stumping up part or most of the cash.
The subject has been given extra sensitivity by the industrial scale pirating of football broadcasts, including every game of the Russia 2018 World Cup and now the UEFA Champions League broadcasts by the Saudi-based BeoutQ channel which is showing matches contracted to Qatar-based sports broadcaster beIN Sport without permission.
FIFA has been reluctant to take decisive action to protect its contracted rights holder and in doing so has planted itself unequivocally in the geo-political world where football’s boundless commercial appetite meets national political interest.
An uncomfortable message that has not been lost on the rest of the sports rights market globally and threatens to destabilise the confidence globally in the broadcast rights market – one of football’s key revenue sources that is already a disrupted marketplace.
The proposal for the Club World Cup would be for a competition every four years rather than the annual seven-team competition currently. The new 24-strong tournament would comprise 12 European teams, five from South America, two each from Africa, Asia and Concacaf plus one for the host nation and a play-off place for the Oceania champions.
FIFA and Infantino have already tried to split European unity, meeting privately with a group of elite clubs to gauge their reaction including Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Juventus, Paris St Germain and Bayern Munich. But both UEFA and the European Clubs Association are understood to be vehemently opposed to the proposed $25 billion buyout.
Back in May, an explosive speech by UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin to Council of European Union Sports Ministers in Brussels hammered Infantino’s plans to reorganise the global football calendar.
“I cannot accept that some people who are blinded by the pursuit of profit are considering to sell the soul of football tournaments to nebulous private funds,” Ceferin charged. “Money does not rule – and the European sports model must be respected. Football is not for sale. I will not let anyone sacrifice its structures on the altar of a highly cynical and ruthless mercantilism.”
Ceferin’s speech could be prophetic for the world game which under Infantino’s leadership appears to be very much up “for sale”, with no concern as to who the buyer is.
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