Fifpro demands Fifa Council probe amid Infantino World Cup sell-off row
Global footballers’ union Fifpro has called for an independent review of the Fifa Council’s powers after it was apparently sidelined by Gianni Infantino’s World Cup sell-off plan.
The call comes in a communique issued as it published new research showing that the vast majority of value created at this year’s World Cup derived from Europe.
European governing body Uefa vowed to boycott Fifa competitions after details of Infantino’s plan to sell stakes to private investors in a new company set up to manage the commercial rights of the World Cup.
The boycott was scrapped after Fifa dropped the sell-off plan, but Uefa and its counterparts in Asia and North and Central America have continued to push for Infantino to step down and the world governing body’s structure overhauled.
Among the criticisms aimed at Infantino is that he bypassed the Fifa Council in discussions about creating the new company, Fifa Forward Enterprise. Fifpro argues that players, clubs and leagues should be part of any new decision-making process.
“Fifpro Europe’s objection to FFE was never an objection to raising funds for under-resourced confederations – that goal is shared,” it said.
“The objection was, and remains, to unilateral aspirations dressed as a solidarity mechanism designed and imposed without the consent, transparency or participation of the players, clubs, leagues and federations whose work sustains it. Any future proposal to grow solidarity funding should be built together, through trusted governance, not advanced unilaterally.
“Fifpro and Fifpro Europe call for an independent review of the Fifa Council’s executive decision-making function, so that no single office can act unilaterally again, and for the formal integration of professional football stakeholders – the players, clubs and leagues that create the game’s value – into that decision-making, alongside Member Associations.
“It is a shared opportunity for the global football community to strengthen football’s governance, so that it reflects and serves everyone who sustains and depends on the game.”
Fifpro reports shows European contribution to World Cup
Some Infantino loyalists, who include South America and Africa, have portrayed European attacks on the Fifa president as a form of imperialism.
Fifpro Europe’s report, compiled by Player IQ and Football Benchmark, found that 94 per cent of player value at the 2026 World Cup came from those signed to European clubs.
“The report shows that football’s global value is created by one global workforce, drawn from every confederation, with European professional football operating as its principal employment and value-creation hub,” Fifpro Europe added.
“This eco-system does not generate this value alone. It depends on the talent that arrives in it from every part of the world, and on the professional development of the game across the globe.”