Dispute for billions of dollars threatens to crack FIFA and affect the World Cup
The project is being considered as the biggest test for the presidency of Infantino
The fight for control of world football takes on unprecedented contours and threatens to put even the organization of the World Cup every four years in check. On Friday, FIFA president Gianni Infantino of Switzerland planned to approve his idea of creating new tournaments that could raise $ 25 billion in cash from the bank thanks to private investors.
But a disagreement between Uefa, Conmebol, FIFA and other delegations may force the top man to postpone a vote and announce only the creation of working groups to study the proposals. The Europeans, opposed to the idea, threatened to leave the meeting room if the bill goes ahead.
Already the funds from Arab, Chinese and American investors who pledged to inject resources into the project have warned that the meeting on Friday is the deadline for an agreement, which has been postponed since the beginning of the year.
On the table is the unprecedented $ 25 billion ($ 92.5 billion) proposal for the organization of a Club World Cup and a League of Nations of global dimensions. Infantino intended to put them to a vote on Friday during the FIFA Council meeting in Rwanda. But UEFA promises to prevent the creation of an event that could threaten the supremacy of the Champions League. Of the 37 members of FIFA's board, nine are from Uefa.
Two proposals will be on the table. One of them foresees a Club World Cup with 24 teams and that would happen every four years, replacing the Confederations Cup in the middle of the year. A second proposal is to maintain the current format but transfer the tournament to the European summer.
In the new tournament, 50% of clubs would come from Europe. FIFA therefore needs the support of Uefa to enable the project to become a reality.
Conmebol also resists. For the entity, there is no way to have a Club World Championship in the middle of the year, at the risk of forcing the whole continent to redo its schedule of tournaments to suit the Europeans. In addition, the leaders were annoyed by Fifa's proposal to give only four places to the clubs in the region.
This Thursday (25), a meeting between the presidents of the six regional confederations and Infantino showed the scale of the crisis. It was established that, instead of a vote, Fifa would create a working group to study the case until the beginning of 2019. By the project, each edition of Club World would yield $ 3 billion and would be disputed between 2021 and 2033.
But as they left the meeting, the leaders were surprised by an investor warning: they would not accept further delays and demand a definition. Infantino will now have to weigh between persuading investors to stay and not opening an internal crisis, which would jeopardize his re-election in 2019.
WORLD CUP
As for the League of Nations, the idea of a dispute involving countries around the world would begin after 2022. Games would take place throughout the year, replacing friendly matches. Once again, the Europeans were reluctant.
Behind the scenes, however, delegations from various countries already speculate on the possibility that if the project is barred by Europeans, they would agree to think of setting up a mini-World Cup every two years. The logic is that, leaving the tournament every four years, FIFA would "kill" the commercial interest in the League of Nations that Europe has just created.
In recent weeks, Infantino has tried to sew an alliance with leaders from different regions to get the project approved. In a letter, he assured that the new tournaments would not have money from sovereign funds, a way to ensure that the one behind the project was not the Saudi regime, one of the suspects.
In just a few months, Infantino held four meetings with Saudi leaders interested in becoming a major player in world football. But the scandals involving the death of a critical journalist in Riyadh and the pressure for clarification prompted the FIFA president to assert that the new project would have only private resources.
The Swiss had infuriated the Europeans by proposing the new tourney model with a fund of investors that he would refuse to reveal the proprietary names.
The project is being considered as the biggest test for Infantino's presidency. If the issue were rejected, the Swiss would be receiving a clear warning from other leaders that their governance style does not satisfy and that their re-election in 2019 could be threatened. He has already made it clear that he wants another four-year term in charge of FIFA.
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