\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t CONCACAF, the governing body for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean, announced on Thursday that it will back its European counterpart, UEFA, in boycotting the International Federation of Association Footballs (FIFA) proposal to bring private investment into its competitions, including the World Cup.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, FIFA unveiled plans to create a commercial subsidiary to manage its flagship tournaments, opening the door for private investors to acquire minority stakes.<\/p>\n
The proposal was spearheaded by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who was under fire recently after United States president Donald Trump admitted to calling him to request a review of US striker Folarin Balogun\u2019s ban during the World Cup, among other controversies.<\/p>\n
According to the world football\u2019s governing body, the proposal would \u201cinvite third parties to make minority, non-controlling investments\u201d in a new subsidiary, FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE).<\/p>\n
The proposal requires the support of 106 of FIFA\u2019s 211 member associations to pass.<\/p>\n
However, the Union of European Football Associations voted Thursday to reject the plan and agreed to boycott the World Cup if its approved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product,\u201d UEFA said in a statement, adding that \u201cNo part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Central and North America agrees Later that day, CONCACAF became the first of FIFA\u2019s other continental confederations to back UEFA\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistory has shown FIFA and the football family what happens when the custodians of the game lose sight of [values like service, transparent governance, and long-term stewardship],\u201d CONCACAF said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The confederation added that its members \u201cexpressed deep concerns about the lack of due process surrounding the proposal, the artificially short deadline imposed, and the absence of any review or approval by the relevant FIFA governance bodies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It also questioned the need for private equity investment [\u2026] following the most profitable FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n
Other confederations weigh in CONCACAF and UEFA are not alone. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) also came out against FIFA\u2019s proposal on Friday.<\/p>\n
That leaves South America\u2019s CONMEBOL, Africa\u2019s CAF and Oceania\u2019s OFC as the only continental confederations yet to publicly support or oppose the proposal.<\/p>\n
However, those three confederations represent 75 FIFA members, meaning that even if they supported Infantinos proposal, their votes alone would not be enough to secure the 106 needed for the proposal to pass.<\/p>\n
The Herald reached out to the Argentine Football Association for comment and is awaiting a response.<\/p>\n
Cover image: FIFA twitter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CONCACAF, the governing body for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean, announced on Thursday that it will back its European counterpart, UEFA, in boycotting the International Federation of Association Footballs (FIFA) proposal to bring private investment into its competitions, including the World Cup. On Tuesday, FIFA unveiled plans to create a commercial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":98743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4963,66,4844,67,338],"tags":[23445,1368,25582,1369,20148],"class_list":["post-98742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fifa","category-football","category-gianni-infantino","category-sports","category-world-cup","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}