Cordeiro Resigns from FIFA Amid Power Struggle Over World Cup
Carlos Cordeiro has walked away from FIFA – and straight into the heart of the biggest power struggle world football has seen in years.
The senior advisor to Gianni Infantino resigned in protest at plans to explore selling a stake in a new World Cup commercial vehicle to private investors, detonating his exit with a blunt, public rebuke of the project and the president he served.
“As a senior advisor to the FIFA president, a former banker, and a lifelong football fan, I cannot stand by while FIFA considers selling a stake in the World Cup,” Cordeiro said in a statement to Sky News. “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.”
In Zurich, the walls are closing in.
Infantino’s project under siege
The plan at the centre of the storm is the proposed creation of FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), a commercial entity designed to attract outside investment. A group led by Thrive Eternal – founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former US president Donald Trump – is waiting to take a minority stake if the scheme survives.
Infantino backs it. The confederations, increasingly, do not.
FIFA tried to seize back the narrative with a statement issued in the early hours of Friday morning, insisting “nobody is selling football” and portraying the uproar as the product of “incorrect media reports”.
The message was defiant: the consultation will go on.
“We have heard the feedback provided by the respective confederations in relation to the proposed establishment of FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) and would like to address the issues that have surfaced since the initial media reporting on Tuesday,” FIFA said. “We respect the feedback and concern aired in public and reaffirm our commitment to an open and democratic consultation.
“Our planned consultation process was disrupted by incorrect media reports. We will proceed with this consultation process to ensure that each MA has the ability to express its vote based on facts.”
The statement stressed that FFE was designed “solely” to give all Member Associations “meaningful ownership of the commercial opportunity of football in their respective countries”, adding: “Nobody is selling football. This is not something FIFA would ever entertain.”
The words landed badly.
Confederations revolt
By the time FIFA’s defence appeared, the opposition had already hardened into a bloc that would have been unthinkable even a few months ago.
UEFA’s 55 member associations declared on Thursday that they would boycott all FIFA competitions until the FFE proposal is scrapped in full. Not watered down. Not tweaked. Removed.
UEFA called its stance “unanimous and unequivocal”, and its threat was crystal clear:
No UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.
CONCACAF, representing 41 nations across North and Central America and the Caribbean, followed with its own rejection, saying it “rejected the proposal”. The Asian Football Confederation, long seen as one of Infantino’s most reliable pillars of support, then broke ranks too, calling for an “urgent review” of FIFA’s governance.
That trio alone represents 143 of FIFA’s 211 Member Associations. A majority of the world game’s political map now stands openly against the president’s flagship commercial idea.
FIFA tried to push back with one more line in its statement: “Each MA should be allowed to review the proposal and have a say in shaping their own future.”
But the mood had changed. The fight was no longer about a single commercial structure. It had become a question of who runs football, and how.
AFC turns up the heat
The AFC’s intervention cut deepest inside FIFA’s corridors. This is a confederation that helped carry Infantino to power and has stayed largely loyal since. Its president, Sheikh Salman, lost to Infantino in the 2016 presidential election. Until now, he has not publicly challenged him in such stark terms.
The AFC said this moment “must become a catalyst for strengthening institutional reform” and issued a pointed warning about what democracy inside FIFA should look like.
“While every FIFA MA must have the opportunity to consider and determine proposals affecting the future of world football, meaningful democracy is not measured solely by the opportunity to vote,” its statement read. “It begins with transparent governance, timely consultation, informed deliberation and genuine participation throughout the decision-making process.
“Accordingly, the AFC calls upon FIFA to undertake an urgent review of its governance and decision-making framework to ensure that proposals of global significance are developed through proper consultation, meaningful engagement and appropriate oversight by FIFA's statutory bodies.”
For a president who has relied on non-European confederations to cement his authority, that is more than gentle advice. It is a warning shot.
Money, power and the World Cup
At the core of the dispute lies a simple question: who should control the World Cup’s commercial future?
Infantino’s camp argues that FFE would unlock vast new revenues, with promises of huge returns for national associations if the structure goes ahead. But those projections rest on a World Cup that still includes Europe, still carries its full sporting and commercial weight, and still enjoys the backing of major leagues.
Right now, that looks fanciful.
European and world leagues have lined up against the plans, alarmed that private money would push FIFA towards ever bigger, ever more frequent tournaments, squeezing domestic calendars and shifting the game’s centre of gravity further towards centralised global events.
If UEFA holds its line and keeps its national teams out of FIFA tournaments, the business model underpinning FFE starts to crumble. A World Cup without Europe is still a tournament. It is not the same product investors have been sold.
‘He’s in a hole and he needs to stop digging’
Inside the game, attention has turned to Infantino himself – and whether he can survive this crisis without a dramatic change of course.
Kaveh Solhekol of Sky Sports News described FIFA’s late-night statement as “a desperate, tone-deaf statement that was issued in the middle of the night from FIFA's Zurich bunker,” noting that it did not mention the president by name.
“The way I read this is that this is a statement from Gianni Infantino; it's not necessarily a FIFA statement. How many people inside FIFA actually agree with what he is doing?” Solhekol asked.
“He's in a hole and he needs to stop digging. He needs to start reading the room. He needs to start accepting the fact his power is starting to ebb away and he needs to start by apologising to football, to football fans all around the world – and he also needs to start apologising and explain himself to the confederations and the presidents of the 211 member associations.
“And he needs to stop blaming the media. What is this crazy obsession he's got? He seems to have picked it up from President Donald Trump, where he thinks it's a good idea to keep lashing out at the media. He seems to somehow think that is going to help him.
“The reporting that has been done this week, which was led by The Times and the Financial Times has been completely and utterly accurate. And if it wasn't for this reporting, there wouldn't be this furore that we have now and we wouldn't know the facts we know now.
“I suggest Infantino needs to change course. He needs to wake up and fully understand the mess he has created for himself and he needs to start saying sorry because I think that's the only way he's going to be able to save himself.”
Can Infantino ride this out?
This is not the first storm of Infantino’s presidency. He has survived investigations, political battles and fierce criticism over the expansion of tournaments and the awarding of World Cups. Each time, he has emerged with his authority intact, often strengthened.
This feels different.
“Infantino has been in plenty of tight spots and he has managed to extricate from them. But I think he's in big, big trouble now. I think this is the biggest crisis he's faced – and it's all of his own making,” Solhekol said.
“The best way for him to survive, he seems to think, is to pretend this is all just a democratic process, what's happening now is just a consultation, the 211 FAs can decide whether to go ahead with this plan, and if they don't, no problem at all, it's all been a storm in a teacup.
“Other people, I think, would advise him to come out and say sorry, then lie low for a while, maybe ride it out and maybe he could be re-elected as FIFA president unopposed next March, but that doesn't seem to be what he's doing.
“I'm not sure he can carry on down this road of blaming the media and carrying on with the consultation process. I'm not sure he understands the strength of feeling against him – not just over this, but over lots of things he's done since he's been FIFA president.”
Cordeiro’s resignation strips away one more layer of protection around the president and sends a message from inside his own circle: this fight is not just about structures and shares. It is about the soul of the World Cup.
If Infantino holds his line and the consultation goes ahead, he risks a split that could fracture FIFA’s competitions and shatter its commercial appeal. If he retreats, he concedes ground not only on FFE but on the way power is wielded from Zurich.
The World Cup has survived wars, boycotts and scandals. The next test may be whether it can withstand its own guardians trying to reshape who owns its future.
