UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

354

ddickfickling about 2 hours ago 213 commentsRead Article on uefa.com

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Discussion (213 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

brunoborges•about 2 hours ago

Infantino clearly wants to see FIFA making billions so he and many others can pocket millions legally. But the only way for this to happen in a non-corrupt way, given that FIFA is non-profit and therefore requires a lot of questionable operations, is to turn FIFA into a business like NFL / MLS.

The problem with that is that it then it is no longer a sport, rather a... business.

UEFA letter is spot on.

madradavid•17 minutes ago

CONCACAF join UEFA and reject FIFA's World Cup sell-off plan. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49488584/uefa-boycott... . By the end of this Gianni Infantino will only be left with the Africans .I am African and these Federations will do anything to keep him around because of the unprecedented amounts of corruption...

conradfr•7 minutes ago

While the football business is horrible it's nice that this may fail like the Super League.

Now if only that could put a dent in Infantino reelection...

jmathai•about 1 hour ago

The experience interacting with FIFA is so terrible already. I can only imagine how much worse it would be if it turned into a profit machine.

CodingJeebus•about 1 hour ago

Agreed, the tickets to the tournament this year were just outrageously priced. Football is historically a working class sport, but $1,000 to watch a team like DR Congo in the group stage is next level criminality. And it's only going to get worse from here.

curun1r•about 1 hour ago

FIFA looked at this World Cup as an experiment. They wanted to see whether turning the monetization knob all the way to 11 would encounter significant resistance or whether fans would still watch/attend. The US, with its plethora of expensive stadiums and lax regulatory environment for price gouging compared to Europe, was the perfect testing environment. They upped the number of teams to 48 to get more games, used dynamic ticket pricing, added hydration breaks for more commercials in markets that would allow it and added a few other income streams. All this more than doubled their profits because, and this is the important part going forward, fans didn’t push back. They complained, but the still came/watched.

So this will now be the new norm. Host countries will be ones where laws don’t prohibit gouging fans. They’ll come up with creative solutions to meet the rotation requirement like the upcoming host a couple games in South America farce that’s allowing them to go to Saudi Arabia after that. They’ll continue to push the boundaries of decency until they get sufficient pushback.

javier2•about 1 hour ago

For Infantino, they reckon his salary can go from 6M to 60M under this new org…

outside1234•28 minutes ago

These people looked at OpenAI and went "Hey, I can run corruption like that too!"

ardit33•about 1 hour ago

They also got so greedy that even EA couldn't deal with them anymore and they ended up destroying the Fifa videogame franchise

tmgldn•about 1 hour ago

Imagine being more money hungry than EA - a company which makes billions from gaslighting children into gambling money on getting their favourite players.

oliwarner•about 1 hour ago

They just made $15bn.

jimbokun•about 1 hour ago

Which is clearly not enough.

brunoborges•about 1 hour ago

The point is not how much it made, it is how to transfer that wealth (whether 6B or 60B) out of a non-profit into someone else's account without looking like, or literally being, a criminal.

seviu•about 1 hour ago

FIFA is also a terrible employer

Got friends working for them as developers. They ran away. In months

jackbravo•about 1 hour ago

Are you talking about EA or FIFA?

lossolo•about 1 hour ago

> and many others

Trump and Kushners

"Joshua Kushner is now the kingpin in driving the sale of the World Cup to investors and family ties are tight around the project"[1]

1. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/30/fifas-sale-...

hulitu•28 minutes ago

> UEFA

They are no strangers to certain aspects of it. /s

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

What's new? I thought it has been known as a big-money thing for some time now.

jimbokun•about 1 hour ago

The new thing is trying to take the organization from a non-profit to a corporation. Mainly so the executives can increase their already large compensation apparently.

Interesting parallels to OpenAI.

glitchc•about 1 hour ago

FIFA made $~15 billion USD this World Cup, roughly double what they made in Qatar in 2022. There are many low-hanging fruit that can be optimized to increase that revenue by 10x.

overfeed•about 1 hour ago

I didn't realize the commercial-block-sized "hydration breaks" were that profitable.

For a second, I thought the Americanization[1] of fùtbol would be done gradually and no one would complain as we'd be slowly boiled. I'm glad the corrupt bastards got greedy/impatient and took a big swing.

1. Sports as business first, catering to owners first, sponsors second, broadcasters, and then lastly fans. IMO non-profit sports organizations are the best model for fans, who I identify the most with.

haunter•about 1 hour ago

The difference that FIFA ran the whole tournament now. There was no Local Organizing Committee (LOC) like with every single previous event.

lossolo•38 minutes ago

> There are many low-hanging fruit that can be optimized to increase that revenue by 10x.

The $15 billion figure is for FIFA's ENTIRE 2023-2026 revenue cycle, so not just this World Cup. But the obvious "low-hanging fruit" was making the tournamenta lot larger (104 matches instead of Qatar's 64), so a lot more tickets, hospitality sales, ads etc

Also two 3 minute hydration breaks per match, giving broadcasters additional advertising windows.

That's your "optimization".

erfgh•25 minutes ago

What's wrong with making billions? Will this hurt the game somehow?

mig1•17 minutes ago

Investors calling to change red cards because the best players should play, etc

tommek4077•20 minutes ago

We've seen the start with "hydration breaks" and a 30 minute half-time.

ralfd•21 minutes ago

Yes.

The game was already hurt this world cup with the flow destroying „hydration breaks“ to sell more ads.

triceratops•about 1 hour ago

This is so highly unusual even sports-allergic HN wants to discuss it. It's like a religious schism in some sense.

xhevahir•about 1 hour ago

It's about brazen corruption in one of the world's most famous institutions. Taking an interest in it isn't as irrational as all that.

coffeebeqn•about 1 hour ago

I don’t know whos on Infantinos side on this

tverbeure•about 1 hour ago

There are 200+ participating countries. Many of those are on his side, because they’re tiny and easy to bribe: a few million is significant for them and often that money can be siphoned into corrupt pockets.

That said, a World Cup without any of the 55 UEFA countries wouldn’t make sense commercially.

jimbokun•about 1 hour ago

But the USA men might finally do well!

Depending on whether the South American teams show up…

walthamstow•30 minutes ago

The heads of Football Associations of tiny countries who took enormous bungs to vote for him and then spent the money on some facilities but mostly themselves

steveBK123•about 1 hour ago

Kushner

haunter•about 1 hour ago

Trump and his family.

His son in law is running the investment firm https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-fifa-investors-kushner-...

In turn Trump wants to nominate Infantino for Secretary General of UN https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/22/trumps-pick-for-the-next...

DeRock•about 1 hour ago

There is nothing this family does not see as an opportunity for corruption. Comically evil.

hdgvhicv•about 1 hour ago

> Sepp Blatter weighed in, writing on X: "The close relationship between the Fifa president and the US President [Donald Trump] has reached a financial dimension that is deeply damaging football. No-one has the right to sell our game."

Sepp Blatter for crying out loud.

dismalaf•about 1 hour ago

Who better to recognize corruption?

altmanaltman•about 1 hour ago

Blatter was corrupt to the core but cared about the actual sport if you look at his record. This new president is like a james bond villian caricature like he actually wants to destroy the sport.

qzw•about 1 hour ago

The companies that want a piece of FIFA, I assume.

Edit: I just realized you meant who here on hn, in which case I assume the hardcore capitalists/libertarians. But they can speak for themselves.

mrhottakes•about 1 hour ago

On HN? The capitalist/libertarian/Elon posters, Meta employees, etc.

shmuli9•about 1 hour ago

About time

Hard to think of a modern institution as corrupt as fifa. That may not bother too many people because it’s not their government, but I just think it stinks

t0mpr1c3•about 1 hour ago

FIFA has been monstrously corrupt since at least as far back as the 1970s (Havelange).

I backslid this year, but did completely boycott watching in 2018 and 2022. Russia is a pariah state and should never have been allowed to host, and Qatar was manifestly unsuitable.

The only difference this year is that the bribery and political favors were out in the open.

paxys•about 1 hour ago

There are levels to it. Sepp Blatter was notoriously corrupt, but Infantino makes his "envelope full of cash under the table" style of corruption look amateurish.

t0mpr1c3•27 minutes ago

Even in the festering pit of slime that is FIFA, Infantino stands out for his festeringdom and slimitude.

maccard•about 1 hour ago

> Hard to think of a modern institution as corrupt as fifa

IOC is about the only organisation that comes close to it I think.

DrJokepu•31 minutes ago

Interestingly, both FIFA and IOC are headquartered in Switzerland, a country that is ranked by Transparency International as one least corrupt countries in the world… Draw you own conclusions.

kzrdude•26 minutes ago

A common factor seems rather that international sports orgs are often very corrupt. Would be interesting to understand why it happens systematically. Lack of good governance structures must be part of it.

nkg•about 1 hour ago

I'm so happy to see they care enough to take a stand. The last World Cup was a sh-t show. I expect the LA olympics to be no better.

dmarcos•about 1 hour ago

How was it a shit show? I’m genuinely curious. I attended 5 games (Atlanta, LA and Dallas) and was a fantastic experience minus the process to get tickets.

antonyt•about 1 hour ago

Not OP, but I would guess: "hydration breaks" to inject commercials, half-time shows that felt alien to much of the core audience, and various rule-bending shenanigans (Ronaldo, Balogun).

dmarcos•29 minutes ago

Hydration breaks a tad weird. Half time shows were pretty subtle, didn’t change the length of the break except for the final. There’s no soccer competition without someone complaining about refereeing. Def always things to improve but I had fun, all people around me seemed to have fun. I flew in an out and always was either public transportation or uefa provided shuttles… It was really well run. Not something you can call a “shit show”

another-dave•6 minutes ago

The fact that you had 'hydration breaks' in enclosed, fully air-conditioned stadiums is very telling.

cryptoegorophy•22 minutes ago

Also a funny trump red card

curun1r•21 minutes ago

The Iranian team’s treatment is a prime example. The Somalian ref being denied entrance is another. And the Balogun red card is a double example (it shouldn’t have been a red card in the first place, but the precedent that the President of the host country can get a call overturned is even worse).

triceratops•about 1 hour ago

The ticket prices and scalping (sorry, authorized re-selling to find the market clearing price) were robbery.

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

Sports people (I was listening to Bill Simmons) rated it pretty highly.

There was nothing egregious and it was widely attended.

t0mpr1c3•about 1 hour ago

The way that the Iran team was only allowed into the USA on match days was a disgrace.

Refusing entry to a Somali referee on the spurious grounds of links to terrorism was a disgrace.

The overturning of Falorin Balogun's ban was a disgrace.

The ticket prices were a disgrace. The transport to the stadiums was a shambles.

I could go on.

charlieyu1•about 1 hour ago

The World Cup final is supposed to be a war and the half time show turned it into a clown fest.

NoboruWataya•18 minutes ago

The football itself wasn't bad, it was all the other stuff - prices, unfair treatment for Iran, hydration breaks, the whole Balogun thing, the pre-game and half-time shows at the final, Trump photo-bombing the Spanish celebration, etc. Every WC has its own problems and some of these things will be forgotten about soon, but it definitely seemed more ruthlessly commercialised than ever before.

ktallett•about 1 hour ago

The fact a ban was overturned as a political favour.

t0mpr1c3•about 1 hour ago

Maybe the way that Infantino nakedly advanced political favors for Trump (the f×××ing peace prize, Folarin f×××ing Balogun) and now wants a fat slice of payback?

paulbjensen•about 1 hour ago

It's only a matter of time before there are sponsors on the Yellow and Red cards...

coffeebeqn•about 1 hour ago

Guaranteed slots to the tournaments for patrons

fred_is_fred•about 1 hour ago

The red card for covering your mouth while talking to an opponent is brought to you by Telegram.

khazhoux•about 1 hour ago

“And that’s the second State Farm Yellow Card for Haaland!”

runarberg•about 1 hour ago

“Looks like this is a card. He already has a yellow (sponsored by Qatar Airwaves), and may be looking at his second. YES! he is receiving is second yellow, this time sponsored by Universal Studio, and here is the red card. Sponsored by Red Bull. He is leaving this game and his team mates one down.”

Second commentator: “It is true, Red Bull gives you wings. In this case, the wings only take you to the shower room.”

secretsatan•about 1 hour ago

I follow a local team and don’t really follow the larger picture, but injuries are sponsored, i always thought that would produce a perverse incentive.

haunter•about 1 hour ago

I think the mandatory ad break introduced by FIFA at the World Cup was also too much for most football people, not just fans. Changed too much, broke the dynamics, basically the sport became a game of 4 quarters instead of 2 halves. These two things combined together are just over the top and unacceptable (UEFA already said they won't use these mandatory ad breaks anywhere)

This is the closest where I can see a future where we have a rugby union / rugby league like schism.

Oh and guess who is behind the investment group: https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-fifa-investors-kushner-...

jimbokun•about 1 hour ago

I agree completely with your assessment of the water breaks, but the games were extremely entertaining and I watched as much as I could.

triceratops•about 1 hour ago

Of all the things wrong with the World Cup, the most inconsequential ones - hydration breaks and the final half-time show - have attracted the most griping.

alberto-m•about 1 hour ago

Changing the pauses of the game alters the momentum and, as consequence, the results. How is that “inconsequential”? There have been cases of corrupted referees before, but violating the Laws of the Game in plain sight is an unprecedented attack on the sport.

HelloMcFly•about 1 hour ago

I think hydration breaks can be defensible as long as they are a) conditionally triggered by pre-existing criteria that is b) created by an honest assessment of player welfare independent of economic considerations.

I can't say I think the halftime show is a big deal at all though.

xmprt•about 1 hour ago

I can agree that it definitely makes it a different game/playstyle but I'm still not sure if it's guaranteed worse. Putting ads during the break is obviously bad and a cash grab but from a gameplay perspective, it's not clear that a short break during the half is necessarily worse.

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

How does it violate the laws of the game?

Every single break time decision in football is arbitrary already.

jotajota24•40 minutes ago

I don't mean to be disrespectful but this is a dumb statement. Do you think splitting each half in 2 quarters doesn't have an impact on how the game is played?

coffeebeqn•about 1 hour ago

The VAR calls 5 minutes after the fact were the most bothersome thing to me

jimbokun•about 1 hour ago

Good thing you don’t watch Premier League. The World Cup VAR was snappy in comparison.

gffrd•about 1 hour ago

… and the 9+’ stoppage for every match.

gffrd•about 1 hour ago

> the most inconsequential ones

This is like saying “customers aren’t worried enough about the corporate process - they only care about the end product!”

monegator•about 1 hour ago

the mandatory ad breaks were usa-level bullshit that never happened before, not even when they were playing in the fucking desert (and that world cup should have been boycotted too, but for different reasons.)

a few years ago when the momentum was moving towards tennis, some european clubs proposed a "super league" comprising of only the elite teams, the purpose was again to maximize ad profits (and i should go back to check who actually proposed it, who they were affiliated with). That time they were suggested not to proceed, or else they would be boycotted from all other events, the players too. That was also a good decision.

football (not handegg) it already corrupt enough as it is, and too much money is flowing into it, it's incredible and heart warming that there is still some dignity left in the associations.

jimbokun•about 1 hour ago

There was extensive coverage and discussion of Trump getting the Balogun red card overturned.

triceratops•about 1 hour ago

Thank you! An actual problem!

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

Why would non-fans even care? It was a 3 minute break, non-fans would not have any idea that you were going for 2 halves to 4 "quarters". I think this is the kind of thing purists care about but most people don't, most don't even know it is new.

scbrg•about 1 hour ago

I'm most certainly not a football fan, but I definitely know that a match consists of two 45 minute (and then some) halves. It's pretty much equivalent to a non motor enthusiast knowing that there are usually four wheels on a car.

I'd say this is very, very common knowledge in huge parts of the world. It's not something only enthusiasts and purists know.

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

Sure, but they aren't leaving the field. There are plenty of stoppages in game already which take as much time. In that sense it's nothing new. Do non-fans view it as changing to 4 "quarters"? I'm not sure most people would care. This is what I mean it's the kind of thing that football purists care about but it's a very small thing.

poncho_romero•about 1 hour ago

Why would anyone be in favour of more ad breaks?

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

I'm not arguing for ad breaks, I'm saying non-fans would not even be aware this is something new.

This is the thing that is too much? I just don't get it. The entire thing is a spectacle to sell ads.

rsynnott•about 1 hour ago

> non-fans would not have any idea that you were going for 2 halves to 4 "quarters"

… By non-fans do you mean people who have literally never heard of football, or something? I’m very far from a fan, no interest at all. But, I mean, I know there are two halves. Everybody knows that.

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

There still are 2 halves. Framing it as quarters is the entire thing. There are numerous things throughout a game which will cause the game to be paused just as long, which is why there is stoppage time.

hamper653•about 1 hour ago

Most football non-fans absolutely know that a football match is supposed to be two halves.

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

It's still two halves there is just another short stoppage time in which players stay on the field, the same as every foul, goal, and variety of other timing based decisions in football.

sunrising•about 1 hour ago

It's a pity that those letters are not sent for many many other things.

dotcoma•about 1 hour ago

Europe, united at long last!

tedggh•about 1 hour ago

Why is this out of the gate bad? Note that this is not taking FIFA to private equity, but creating an investors owned subsidiary to run events and commercial operations where the non profit arm will still own 80% of it. With the right protections it could help FIFA make more money and reinvest in the sport, particularly women’s football. FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA. Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.

jotajota24•41 minutes ago

Why is it bad to sell 20% of the biggest tournament in the world to a private company lead by people involved with the most corrupt administration in the history of the US? The model has been working fine for decades, why does it matter that it makes less than american sports?

tedggh•28 minutes ago

The most beloved, most watched sport in the world making less than the American/Canadian hockey league is a commercial failure. Non profits are generally inefficient at running businesses. With the right guardrails a private arm that knows how to run a business could help FIFA make a ton of money. And yes a lot of rich guys will become even richer too, so what?

triceratops•25 minutes ago

> help FIFA make a ton of money

It's a non-profit. So who cares? Why is more money automatically good?

> making less than the American/Canadian hockey league is a commercial failure

They aren't alike. The NHL doesn't happen once every 4 years.

kzrdude•20 minutes ago

The point of Fifa is not to make money. The point of it is to further the interests of the sport.

Besides, your tally of sports incomes is wrong since you didn't include UEFA revenue, which is also football money, in the count.

rassimmoc•25 minutes ago

guardrails, yea pedotrump pissed all over existing guardrails in this wc. and you want to sell him a piece of fifa :D

triceratops•30 minutes ago

> FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA.

FIFA holds one significant money-making tournament for a month every 4 years (all due respect to the Women's World Cup in terms of prestige, but its revenue is a small fraction of the Men's World Cup). The NHL runs 6 months a year annually.

tedggh•24 minutes ago

That’s part of their poor commercial vision. Even the World Cup brings less revenue than one season of the NBA. Doesn’t even make sense to compare it with the NFL.

triceratops•21 minutes ago

Again, it doesn't last as long as one season of the NBA or play as many games.

A single NBA season has over 1200 games - over 12 times as many games as the most recent World Cup (104). And that was already the largest-ever WC. Does the NBA have 12x the revenue of the WC?

> Even the World Cup brings less revenue than one season of the NBA

This isn't even true btw. The 2026 WC made $15b and the 2025-26 NBA season made $14.3 billion. [1][2]

Most of the WC's participating teams represent places poorer than the places NBA teams hail from.

You can't run the World Cup like the NBA. That's not how the sport works.

1. https://www.sportico.com/leagues/basketball/2025/nba-revenue...

2. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/18/fifa-record...

warkdarrior•7 minutes ago

> Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.

Maybe fans would prefer that it stayed that way.. making just enough money to keep the sport going, without the profit motive.

millhouse_ams•24 minutes ago

NHL/NFL/NBA are national leagues, the FIFA world cup a tournament that takes place every four years. You’re comparing apples and pears.

rassimmoc•28 minutes ago

don't be naive. Never in the history of humanity did corrupt billionaire pedophiles do anything help the sport/fans/women/..... They want a piece to get the foot in the door. 10 years from now, we wont even recognise football anymore.

I don't care what american billionaires make with nhl/nfl/..., hands fucking off of football.

sizzzzlerz•about 1 hour ago

Somewhere in this fetid swamp of corruption, you just know the trump crime syndicate has its greasy hands on the pie.

verdverm•39 minutes ago

*hands on a peace of the pie

hn_submit•about 1 hour ago

I find the UEFA standpoint a little disingenuous since commercial interests have been a top priority in football (soccer) for decades. Claiming that allowing investors to participate will hurt the sport are at the very least a misrepresentation of the current situation.

Although I disagree with his methods and goals I enjoy watching the way Infantino uses power play to stack the cards in his favor.

The only way for the UEFA to reclaim authority would be to demand two-thirds voting rights. The model of "one country, one vote" clearly works to UEFA's disadvantage even though its clubs contribute the majority of FIFA's income.

t0mpr1c3•5 minutes ago

Yes, it's a stretch to believe that UEFA is objecting strictly on a point of principle.

UEFA seems to think people have forgotten that they tried to buy off top teams from the national organizations into a European super league.

In effect they did it anyway with CL.

paxys•about 1 hour ago

Football/soccer is one place where Europe can easily flex their muscles against American capitalism and corruption. Good on them for saying it loud and clear.

jimbob45•about 1 hour ago

This is a joke, right? I can’t think of any league as blatantly corrupt as FIFA on any level.

jotajota24•38 minutes ago

What are you on about? FIFA is not a league and certainly not in charge of european football

riffraff•about 2 hours ago

It's crazy that as despicable an organization as UEFA is, they're still far better than FIFA.

Infantino has been a disgrace, I hope they manage to get rid of him, but I have very little hope.

vostrocity•about 1 hour ago

I don't follow any sport, but I actually don't understand why UEFA and FIFA are non-profits when all the American leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL) are for-profit corporations. It seems to work well in America.

overfeed•44 minutes ago

> It seems to work well in America.

Does it? Who does it work out well for? Franchises continuously extort tax-payer funds for stadia,some team switches host cities every few years, and the for-profit corporations are legal cartels that decides who gets to own a team. The number of ad-breaks is horrendous to anyone who's watched sports elsewhere.

Normal_gaussian•40 minutes ago

MLB & NFL only changed to for-profit organisations somewhat recently (2007, 2015). afaict NBA has always been for-profit.

Internationally the standard is non-profits. Most sports have both their international organisations and highest standard of play organisations as non-profits - football, tennis, golf, cricket. The international components of baseball, american football, and basketball are all non-profits (though they are lower standards of play than the US internal leagues).

paxys•38 minutes ago

American sports leagues are also non-profit organizations. Profits go to the individual teams. So no, FIFA should not be run by private equity firms.

tmgldn•about 1 hour ago

Because they were designed to be decentralised federations, atop the footballing body in each country. More generally, the US is the most capitalist country, whereas the rest of the world does automatically see capitalism as justified, superior or inevitable.

Lastly, football is a grassroots participation sport that is seen by its fans as more of a religion than a conventional act of entertainment. Of course, religion in the US is also often for-profit, but hopefully you get the point.

charlieyu1•about 1 hour ago

Are they? Their revenues are limited and they can’t really extend their influence outside USA. Meanwhile European games are watched globally

ff10•42 minutes ago

I secretly hope that Infantino goes ahead with it anyway. UEFA and others will form something new. Something that replaces the incredibly broken and corrupted FIFA with a de-facto and de-jure non-profit governing body.

igsomething•42 minutes ago

The same UEFA that added redundant matches and teams to the Champions League for money, and that came up with the Nations League because they wanted to extract more money from the national teams?

einrealist•about 1 hour ago

Yes, but isn't football already overly commercialised? Why is advertising for sports betting or alcohol any better than the FIFA issue? UEFA should take a look at itself, too.

jimbokun•about 1 hour ago

You can be against more than one thing.

blahblaher•about 1 hour ago

Good to see some "balls" can still be found

scaredreally•about 1 hour ago

ELI5? What are the factors and implications?

jimbokun•41 minutes ago

FIFA made ludicrous amounts of money as a non profit running the last World Cup and want to transition to a for profit corporation to make even more.

UEFA representing the European nations with the most competitive teams and many of the biggest stars, just told them good luck running a World Cup without us.

xenospn•about 1 hour ago

There is no World Cup without UEFA.

coffeebeqn•about 1 hour ago

UEFA is Europe basically. So like the nexus of modern football

ahartmetz•about 1 hour ago

7/10 of the currently top ranked national teams are UEFA members.

whateveracct•about 1 hour ago

CONCACAF too

t0mpr1c3•20 minutes ago

Right, IIRC they basically banned everybody in Trinidad from FIFA and relocated the HQ.

It didn't help that Chuck Blazer just looked like a pedophile. Not sure if it's a coincidence that he lived in Trump tower. He had two apartments there, one for his cats.

mgianluc76•about 1 hour ago

Good calls. Honestly, the last World Cup already had way too many unwatchable matches before the quarterfinals. And the hydration pauses to sell more ads. And that halftime show during the final.

jimbokun•44 minutes ago

It was incredibly entertaining and I watched as many games as I could.

shark1•15 minutes ago

Wow! Now you have my respect, UEFA.

baalimago•about 2 hours ago

It seems like Europe, yet again, have to stand up for ethics, morality and try to deflect corruption. It's so tiresome.

hdgvhicv•about 1 hour ago

It’s standing up for football. Far more important.

t0mpr1c3•35 minutes ago

This is UEFA we are talking about.

Remember that when (FIFA president) Blatter was investigated for corruption, (UEFA president) Platini was also banned.

cccbbbaaa•about 1 hour ago

Well, FIFA is also an European organization. Swiss, to be exact.

dgellow•about 1 hour ago

It’s located in Switzerland, but it’s a global organization and has really close ties with the US president

Carbon1603•about 1 hour ago

You don't understand, good things come from the EU, bad things come from those filthy non-EU Europeans.

secretsatan•about 1 hour ago

Sorry to be a pedant, while switzerland is in the european landmass, it is not a member of the EU.

triceratops•about 1 hour ago

Sorry to be a pedant too but no one said EU.

javier2•about 1 hour ago

Maybe. But we take football quite seriously.

jkingsbery•about 1 hour ago

Isn't Infantino European?

efdee•about 1 hour ago

Swiss.

rsynnott•43 minutes ago

Okay, got to admit I did _not_ have “Trump breaks the World Cup” on my bingo card.

verdverm•37 minutes ago

E is for everything TTD

ktallett•about 1 hour ago

The FA's worldwide don't need FIFA, they can set up a new world tournament. You will get a lot of poor nations who stick with FIFA for the cash but at the end of the day without European teams the world cup and FIFA will have minimal value. 5 of the last 6 world cup winners were european and it will only get more biased towards Europe. Argentina post Messi have no chance, and Brazil are the furthest away from winning than they ever have been.

jimbokun•39 minutes ago

There will be no cash for the poor nations without the European teams competing.

paxys•41 minutes ago

FAs coming together and creating a new FIFA will just mean you get another organization that is exactly as corruption-ridden as FIFA. There's no point starting fresh if you don't fix the underlying problem.

Izikiel43•about 1 hour ago

> Argentina post Messi have no chance

Hold my beer

ktallett•about 1 hour ago

Spain have a far more youthful side, who can easily win again. France will come back, as will England. Argentina have few players coming through and many stars will have retired by the next tournament, even youthful Alvarez will be 30 next time out.

t0mpr1c3•about 1 hour ago

Europe is where all the money is made in football. UEFA just want more of the pie.

FIFA is a repulsive pit of corruption but UEFA isn't much better.

Remember Blatter and Platini?

jen20•44 minutes ago

Blatter was president of FIFA, not UEFA.

kzrdude•14 minutes ago

And Infantino has been in high leadership in UEFA (not president), then FIFA

t0mpr1c3•34 minutes ago

Yes, and when Blatter was investigated for corruption both he and Platini, president of UEFA, were banned.

This was barely 10 years ago, it's not ancient history.

Platini is still suing Infantino now.

onesandofgrain•about 1 hour ago

triceratops•about 1 hour ago

You seem to believe things that bring people joy are a waste of human potential. Please explain. Are we only meant to be machines that produce 16/7?

kreyenborgi•about 1 hour ago

I wish sports would be sports, business be business, and politics politics. Whenever they mix, it is for the worse.

mrhottakes•about 1 hour ago

Good. Good riddance.

Ekaros•about 1 hour ago

FIFA is just upholding western values. Profit, exploitation and money over everything else. They with FIA and likes are just showing the world what truly matters for western world.

paxys•about 1 hour ago

American values, not western.

marcosdumay•about 1 hour ago

US values, from the culture of the last 40 years.

orangedog•about 1 hour ago

We're really going to act like the entire world doesn't have issues with this.

Given this is a worldwide institution dealing with this, I think you are both casting the new too small.

Famously before either the US or Western world, these values were never celebrated.

tmgldn•about 1 hour ago

Put it this way - Europeans don't generally call themselves from "the West" in 2026 - it's an American geopolitical fantasy.

t0mpr1c3•about 1 hour ago

To be fair, China and Russia participate in the fantasy.

xhevahir•about 1 hour ago

Or maybe not, since it's Europe who are objecting here?

callamdelaney•about 1 hour ago

Yet it’s the very west uefa protesting.. right

TechTechTech•about 2 hours ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49112089

devy•about 1 hour ago

According to aljazeera's article, "the core investor would be a New York venture capital investment firm created by Joshua Kushner, the brother of US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner."

ChrisArchitect•44 minutes ago

Welcome. Not a dupe if some time has passed between submissions without much discussion or upvotes. And this is the source.

vrganj•about 1 hour ago

Dupe of a dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49108292

ChrisArchitect•44 minutes ago

Welcome. Not a dupe if some time has passed between submissions without much discussion or upvotes. And this is the source.

jotajota24•35 minutes ago

This whole thread is full of people that cannot conceive a model where profit is not the goal

throwaway132448•9 minutes ago

Welcome to HN. It wasn’t always this way, but it sure is now!

glitchc•about 1 hour ago

Cue UEFA's leadership being replaced in the next year or two. FIFA has had a taste of the amount of money involved in professional sports. There's no going back.

t0mpr1c3•38 minutes ago

FIFA has been spectacularly corrupt since at least thd 1970s, and UEFA is not far behind.

When Blatter was kicked out of FIFA for corruption, the USA provided a legal venue for the investigation. Between Infantino and Trump you would think that is off the table.

Expect some kind of back door deal.

CodingJeebus•about 1 hour ago

50 of the 55 member UEFA states took the floor to express their outrage at FIFA, this is not a matter of UEFA leadership being out of touch. The vast majority of the confederation is ready to walk.

glitchc•13 minutes ago

I understand that this is a principled stand by UEFA, no doubt about it. But the amount of money in the offering is too large for the clubs (and their superstars) to snub their noses at it. When it comes down to money, principles are the first to be bought and sold.