Infantino Under Fire: FIFA's $20bn World Cup Sale Plan Blows Up in His Face

Gianni Infantino's grip on FIFA looks shakier than it has in years after a botched attempt to sell off a stake in the World Cup blew up spectacularly this week.

Reports emerged that FIFA had been exploring a partial sale of World Cup assets as part of a proposed $20bn investment plan, only for UEFA and Concacaf to publicly announce their opposition to the move. The confederations' intervention forced FIFA into an awkward damage-control operation, with the governing body scrambling out a formal "clarification" statement in an attempt to calm the row.

Things got messier still when Donald Trump waded in, insisting that FIFA had never actually discussed the $20bn plan with him at all. That directly undercuts the credibility of whatever pitch FIFA was making behind the scenes, and it leaves Infantino looking exposed, having apparently attached the US president's name to a deal Trump says he knew nothing about.

The fallout has been brutal. Writing in The Guardian, Nick Ames argued there can be "no letup" now and that a humiliated Infantino must either stand down voluntarily or be forced out of FIFA altogether. It is about as blunt a call as football's governing body has faced in the Infantino era, and coming just after two of the sport's most powerful confederations publicly broke ranks with him, it is hard to dismiss as noise.

For an organisation that likes to project unity and control, this is as messy as it gets: a flagship financial plan unravelling in public, key stakeholders openly revolting, and the world's most powerful head of state contradicting FIFA's own account. Quite what Infantino does next, and whether UEFA and Concacaf's stand hardens into something more formal, will be the next flashpoint to watch.