All 55 UEFA member associations have voted unanimously to boycott FIFA competitions, including the men's and women's World Cups and the Club World Cup, if FIFA proceeds with a plan to sell ownership stakes in its tournaments to private investors.
The vote was taken at an emergency meeting held on Thursday, July 30. UEFA issued a formal statement immediately afterward.
UEFA's position
In its statement, UEFA said it unanimously and unequivocally rejected FIFA's proposal to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors. The body declared that the World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product, describing it as one of the most important sporting legacies in football, built across generations of players, national teams and supporters on every continent.
UEFA said it was as irresponsible as it was unjustifiable that a proposal of such decisive importance had been designed in secret and brought to the brink of approval without any meaningful consultation with those responsible for protecting and serving the sport. The federation called this not merely a profound failure of leadership but an abandonment of FIFA's institutional duty as custodian of world football.
UEFA argued that once external investors acquire ownership rights in FIFA competitions, football changes permanently. Commercial returns become a standing obligation, and investor expectations become daily pressure. Every decision about the international match calendar, every decision about competition formats, and every decision shaping the future of the game would no longer be taken in the interest of the sport but in the interest of shareholders.
The statement was direct about consequences. UEFA said no UEFA national team would participate in any FIFA competition while the proposals remain active, unless the proposal is fully withdrawn and binding guarantees are provided that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership. UEFA added that no one should have the slightest doubt: it and its member associations would oppose these plans with absolute determination.
The FIFA plan
The story became public on Tuesday, July 28, when The Times reported the full outline of FIFA president Gianni Infantino's plan. According to that report, FIFA intends to sell a 20% stake in a new commercial entity valued at approximately 20 billion dollars. The Switzerland-based non-profit said it was working with JPMorgan bankers to raise up to 4.2 billion dollars this year by attracting external investors into the new commercial company, named FIFA Forward Enterprise.
The Times report also named potential investors with close ties to United States President Donald Trump. Joshua Kushner, a technology investor whose older brother Jared Kushner is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, is said to be in talks to lead the deal through his fund, Thrive Eternal. The plan was first disclosed by the Financial Times.
The Times also noted that Infantino had cultivated a close relationship with President Trump, awarding him FIFA's first so-called peace prize in December, a move that critics said violated the federation's rules on political neutrality.
What comes next
The conflict between UEFA and FIFA is already being described as the most serious the sport has seen in recent years, and an early test of how it develops is not far off. FIFA's Women's World Cup playoff matches are scheduled for October, and those fixtures will be among the first to feel the weight of the boycott threat if the two sides have not resolved their dispute by then.
UEFA made clear the conditions under which it would stand down. The proposal must be completely withdrawn, and FIFA must provide binding guarantees that it will never again seek to open its governance or competitions to private ownership. Until those conditions are met, the federation said Europe's voice would remain firm and unified.
UEFA closed its statement with a direct declaration: some things are simply too important to be sold, and the FIFA World Cup belongs to football, always has, and always will.
