Carlos Cordeiro, senior adviser to the FIFA president, resigned on Friday with immediate effect, calling the proposal to sell 20 percent of a new $20 billion FIFA subsidiary to private investors “a bad deal for football.”
In the statement he released as he left, Cordeiro was unusually direct for a serving Infantino aide.
“Let me be clear: I had no involvement in this proposal and I oppose it unequivocally. It is a bad deal for FIFA’s Member Associations, a bad deal for football and a bad deal for the long-term future of the game.”
The former Goldman Sachs banker, who represented FIFA on the White House task force for the 2026 World Cup, said the financial logic did not add up.
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“FIFA already has access to extraordinary financial resources. The organisation sits on billions of dollars in reserves and no debt. Against that backdrop, selling a permanent stake in football’s most valuable asset to raise 4.2 billion dollars makes little sense.”
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The scheme, branded FIFA Forward Enterprise, would spin off FIFA’s commercial and event operations into a new $20 billion vehicle and sell up to 20 percent of it to outside investors, with Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital named as the anchor investor.
FIFA’s 211 member associations have been offered up to $20 million each to sign on, with a deadline in mid-September to accept or forfeit the funding.
For Cordeiro, the process itself was the problem.
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“Most troubling of all is the absence of answers to fundamental questions. Why this deal? Why now?”
Europe already voted to boycott
On Thursday, all 55 UEFA member associations voted at an emergency virtual meeting to pull their national teams out of every FIFA competition, including the World Cup itself, for as long as the proposal remains on the table.
“Some things are simply too important to sell,” UEFA said. “The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product. It is one of football’s greatest sporting legacies… The World Cup is not for sale.”
CONCACAF, whose votes combined with UEFA’s are already enough to block approval, has also rejected the plan. The Asian Football Confederation has demanded an urgent governance review.
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A former president of the United States Soccer Federation, Cordeiro had been Infantino’s most senior American voice on the delivery of the 2026 World Cup.
“Football has been central to my life and after more than 35 years in banking, I understand both the value of this asset and the consequences of giving part of it away. That is why this proposal should be rejected.”
FIFA had not published a response to the resignation at the time of writing. The vote of the member associations is due by 19 September.
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