Documents seen by the BBC reveal four major weaknesses in Fifa’s proposal to part-privatise the World Cup, including plans for sharply higher ticket prices, possible pressure on broadcasters and an unexplained funding model.
The 25-page presentation was circulated to Fifa members this week as part of Gianni Infantino’s controversial plan. It used images of Spain celebrating their World Cup triumph and Argentina supporters to promote the proposal.
The sales pitch suggested the tournament could generate revenues on the scale of major American sports. It also appeared to point towards an extension of the US-influenced model planned for the 2026 World Cup, including tickets costing more than $1,000, dynamic pricing and a greater risk that matches could be placed behind a paywall.
However, the documents leave several central questions unanswered. They also suggest that the proposal, which collapsed within days, was designed to make the World Cup more commercial, more expensive to attend and potentially more frequent.
1. The argument that football is ‘under-monetised’
Fifa’s main case was that the sport generates too little income compared with the size of its worldwide audience. The presentation said “Fifa has been under-monetised versus other leagues” and that this meant “global football development gets squeezed”.
A chart compared annual revenue and revenue per fan for Fifa, the Uefa Champions League, the Premier League, US baseball and the NFL.
On that basis, Fifa appeared to be the poor relation, generating only $1 per global fan compared with $52.8 for the NFL. But the comparison is misleading because the World Cup takes place once every four years rather than annually.
Measured by revenue per match at the 2026 World Cup, Fifa would generate several times more than the Premier League, potentially more than three times as much.
Football is also organised across a decentralised global structure. Significant income is generated by individual competitions and leagues, including the Premier League and the Uefa Champions League. Fifa’s argument was, in effect, that it should capture a larger share of the money generated by football worldwide.
The comparison with the NFL also failed to reflect the different nature of the two sports’ audiences. American football’s supporters are concentrated largely in the United States, while football has fans in both wealthy and developing countries across the world.
In addition, roughly half of NFL revenue is paid in wages. Fifa does not pay Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi or Vozinha. A comparison based on profit rather than revenue would therefore have produced a very different picture.
2. The prospect of extraordinary ticket prices
The proposed new organisation, Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE), was described as the “organiser and operator of competitions” – effectively the World Cup. It would have controlled ticketing, broadcasting, licensing and sponsorship.
That would have moved responsibility for organising the tournament from Fifa, a non-profit body accountable to the global football community, to a privately backed company, although most members of the Fifa board would have remained on its board.
The presentation said FFE would “expand and optimise media rights monetisation” and “maximise the value of Fifa IP [Intellectual Property], which has been undermonetised, historically”.
That language raised questions about whether free-to-air access to World Cup matches could be protected in future. Some live sporting events are protected by legislation in the UK and Europe, but digital rights are expected to change significantly in the coming years.
The structure could also have supported the continuation of the exceptionally high ticket prices expected at the 2026 World Cup.
3. No figure for Fifa’s annual payment
Fifa had proposed selling a 20% stake in FFE, raising an initial $4.2bn. The documents indicate that the money would have funded a $20m “extraordinary distribution” to each of Fifa’s 211 member associations.
That explains the size of the proposed investment. In practice, the initial funding would have provided a one-off infrastructure payment to every voting association involved in deciding the plan.
For Montserrat, the sum would have been worth just under half of the country’s entire economy, or approximately $10,000 per person. Bangladesh, another example cited, is a highly populated and potentially important growth market for football development.
But the documents do not explain where additional investment in Fifa’s future would have come from if the new capital was immediately distributed to members.
They also refer to an “annual license payment” being made to Fifa, but do not state how much it would have been. It is unclear whether that payment would have been fixed or linked to revenue.
The presentation does not answer whether FFE’s objective would have been to maximise income for investors at any cost.
4. The Kushner connection
The timetable included in the presentation showed that the proposal was already at an advanced stage. Investors were due to receive access to the materials this month, terms were expected to be agreed by September, and bids and the transfer of funds were planned for the end of October.
The lead investors were publicly identified as Thrive Eternal, run by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Trump.
Thrive has been primarily focused on artificial-intelligence investments, with OpenAI taking a stake in one of its businesses. Its sports investment arm was only launched in April, when it invested in the San Francisco Giants baseball team.
The Giants were pioneers in using dynamic ticket pricing. Joshua Kushner said the fund would concentrate on selected live sports because “these are assets with qualities that cannot be replicated by technology”.
The investment theory is that entertainment which cannot easily be replaced by AI – unlike some music or films – will become more valuable.
Ultimately, the documents presented an opaque structure intended to continue the 2026 experiment with high ticket prices and greater commercialisation. That could have increased broadcasting costs, encouraged more matches and led to tournaments being staged more often.
The proposal nevertheless fell apart within days.
