Why is FIFA is 'selling' the World Cup? | Global News Podcast

Welcome to the Global News podcast from. the BBC. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway and. we're joined by our chief football news. reporter Simon Stone to talk about that. controversial FIFA plan to sell stakes. in the World Cup to private investors. And Simon, there's been a big backlash. to this, quite a lot of criticism, not. least because of the involvement of the. the wider Trump family. Before we get. into all that though, tell us about the. plan itself. >> Basically, the plan is to.

uh. create a subsidiary. uh organization to FIFA responsible for. developing the commercial aspect of. FIFA. So, Gianni Infantino has made it. quite clear that over the 10 years that. he's been FIFA president, the commercial. value of the organization has increased. hugely, partly or mainly, I suppose, to. do with TV rights for the the main.

competitions. And obviously, FIFA have expanded Club World Cup, so. that's part of it. They've expanded the. Women's World Cup, so that is also part. of it, but mainly uh this is because of. revenue that's generated by the World. Cup. And the World Cup has in this. uh cycle gone up to 48 teams playing in. in the finals, which has driven uh. commercial revenue. So, basically uh Gianni Infantino feels.

as though there's more value to be made. around uh FIFA's rights and therefore. feels, along with. uh many other. um. sporting organizations, that the best. way of tapping into that finance is to. sell part of itself to uh private. investors. And this is where we've got. the brother of Donald Trump's.

son-in-law, his investment vehicle is. listed as one of the main kind of. protagonists who can buy into FIFA and. basically help shape. FIFA's. commercial entity for the next few. years. >> Yeah, and tell us in more detail about. how this could affect the game, uh the. game in Europe and the game in the rest. of the world. >> I mean, the whole idea feels quite.

complicated, but the issue around that. is once you allow. private equity into any organization, then the idea is to maximize income. The. way of maximizing income, if we're going. to be broadly kind of speaking about. FIFA, is to have a bigger World Cup more. often. The Club World Cup bigger, more often, men's and women's. But clearly, we. already have a situation at the moment.

where the players, the leagues, the. associations. are screaming about the lack of lack of. space in the calendar for the. traditional competitions that everyone. values in in every country, I suppose. Well, if you suddenly have a bigger. World Cup more often, well, where is the. space going to be for that to be played? And almost what has got to give. to allow it to happen? Because, for.

instance, in England, the Premier. League, you're not going to say, "Yeah, FIFA, you can have your your competition. um. that that will develop will will. generate money globally, and we'll what. we'll do in return is reduce our. competition, so our clubs get less, so. we have less money to distribute to the. English game." That's not going to. happen. The League Cup, for instance, that that competition generates most of. the Football League's revenue, and.

that's an institution that's been going. for over, well, nearly 150 years. So, that's not going to give, either. So, I. think the main issue is. where does the space come from to hold. these tournaments that people generally. feel will be an inevitable consequence. of what FIFA is announcing? >> Now, the latest report suggests that. Gianni Infantino has given countries. around the world a deadline of of less.

than 2 months to sign up for this or or. miss out on some of the money. Are. nations likely to to turn down the. prospect of extra cash? >> Well, we're we're playing a numbers game. here. So, there are 211. member associations. in FIFA, and this is a straight majority. to pass this. And you're right, the the. deadline is the 19th. of September, so that's. just under.

under 2 months to decide whether to. accept what is essentially a payment of. $20. um that will be paid by the 1st of. January, and then a further $20. that will be paid after that. Now, for. many associations or some associations. um. in FIFA, $20 is really not that much. So, the FA in England, Spain, Italy,

Germany, USA maybe, they. most countries, $20. is not that much. But, for a lot of. countries, it dwarfs the amount of money. that they make from football, basically. If you're in Papua New Guinea, you don't. you know I'm not selling media rights, global media rights for a billion pounds. in the way that the Premier League does.

So, the numbers game falls to whether there. are enough. countries. and enough confederations. who think actually it's a good idea to. spread the money that's in the game. more globally so everybody gets a share. and everybody benefits. There's a. secondary element to it which is how do. FIFA know how this money's going to be.

spent because they say it's for the. development of the game, but who is. going to be across how this money is. going to be spent? But, if there are enough countries who. decide it's in their interests and in. fairness, there's already. um the Czech Republic are already coming. out and saying they think it's a good. idea. The Czech Republic are clearly. from UEFA. UEFA are having a meeting. tomorrow to discuss their reaction, but. they've already said it's a step too.

far. That is the organization that's got. globally that the leagues that generate. the most television revenue. So, if one. of those one of those countries is. already speaking in favor, you can. imagine that there may be a number of. smaller countries or countries with less. developed football in infrastructure in. different parts of the world who will. definitely think it's a good idea. And. then it as I say, becomes a numbers. game. >> Conversely, the Confederation CONCACAF.

and also the one in Asia have expressed. reservations about this. Is that more. about the process than the idea itself? >> Well, I think that's a a good word that. you used there and it's a word that's. coming up quite a lot, process. Um. it's interesting really because we we've. seen during the World Cup the. relationship between Gianni Infantino. uh the FIFA president and also the. United States president Donald Trump.

And I referred before to uh the brother. of Donald Trump's son-in-law being part. of this. this kind of grand plan. But we're used to as well people who. cover. um politics in the United States saying. that Donald Trump is a president who. acts in a way that that presidents just. don't don't act and therefore convention. no longer applies. Well, in this. instance, you could argue that Gian-. Gianni Infantino has done exactly the.

same thing because there is a process. The process is that someone comes. forward with an idea. This then gets um communicated to the. confederations and the FIFA council. And. then those confederations go away to. discuss. with their national associations who are. part of the confederation. Then they. come back and and decide en masse. whether or not um it's a good idea or. not. And it feels as though in this.

instance, Gianni Infantino has ridden. roughshod over all that convention. because numerous people that I've spoken. to have said the first they knew about. it was when the press release landed or. the reports started to emerge you know, an hour or two before that. So, broader. terms, I don't know whether what. CONCACAF is saying and bearing in mind. they've got some big associations, United States, Canada, Mexico and just. held the World Cup, but they've also got.

a lot of smaller countries who would. certainly fit into the the category of. being a country that doesn't really. generate huge amounts from its domestic. football. We've got CONMEBOL um who have. the the 10 South American nations, UEFA, Asia with a huge number of uh members, big and small. It's whether they are. really annoyed over the fact that. they've not been consulted.

and it's a slight against them or it's. whether they're really annoyed about the. proposal itself and they're going to try. and do something about it because. ultimately it's difficult to know what. you can do about it without basically. threatening to boycott FIFA's. competitions. >> Our chief football news reporter, Simon. Stone, thank you. If you'd like to hear. more from the global news podcast, click. the link below, but thanks for watching.