The International Football Federation (FIFA) has fought back hard against critical media reports at a time when there has been a wave of criticism of FIFA's new commercial strategy, a move which has generated strong resistance from major regional governing bodies like UEFA and CONCACAF. FIFA’s new corporate subsidiary FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) is a new commercial entity that will be established to be in charge of global television rights, lucrative sponsorships, ticket sales, and event licensing for global football shows such as the FIFA World Cup. FIFA had wanted to raise about $20 billion in total market value at the end of the game to attract billions of private capital and sell minor minority shares in this new venture to generate revenue to bring in a new foreign investment, FIFA said.
But the ambitious financial blueprint received a severe backlash. UEFA and CONCACAF rejected it in strong terms and expressed anger at a lack of prior consultation and even threatened to boycott the biggest international events. National football bodies and association leaders said the essence and culture of international football cannot be sold as a commercial resource, or sold off to private equity.
FIFA has issued a robust statement defending its position and put the blame on media outlets for the presentation of the proposal, which is true, they added. FIFA said it is committed to open and democratic dialogue with the different football federations and would also not discount them. FIFA added that the dialogue was also badly shaken up by inaccurate reporting that led to confusion among the member associations and FIFA is taking the best of all the suggestions and the world football bodies to the same place. FIFA also said that it is not selling the sport as it is not selling the sport is in accord with its core values and it is a violation of it.
Political pressure continues to build behind the scenes for FIFA President Gianni Infantino to win back confidence in the leadership, especially in the regional confederations at which many of the member associations have openly expressed skepticism. In order to get the investment plan passed Infantino will require 106 of them to support him. The FFE is currently a controversial project with a large number of members calling for transparency but football administrators are at a critical stage in their commercial governance.
