FIFA’s $20 Billion World Cup Plan: Is Football for Sale?
FIFA wants to create a commercial subsidiary valued at approximately $20 billion and invite private investors to acquire minority stakes. The proposal could transform football development—or change the incentives surrounding the World Cup forever.
For generations, the FIFA World Cup did not feel like a commercial product.
It felt like memory.
Pelé being carried from the pitch in Mexico. Diego Maradona lifting the trophy in 1986. Zinedine Zidane walking past the World Cup after his red card in Berlin. Lionel Messi finally completing his career beneath the lights of Lusail.
The tournament belonged to childhood summers, crowded living rooms, national heartbreak and celebrations that poured into streets thousands of miles apart.
Now, however, the World Cup has something else attached to it:
An e…
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