Real Madrid have weighed in on the controversy relating to FIFA’s plans to privatise the World Cup. After Gianni Infantino’s proposal became public knowledge, he faced a huge backlash and has since backed down on the matter.
Infantino had hoped to keep a majority stake of 51 per cent in major international competitions, such as the World Cup and the Club World Cup, but then sell the rest to private investors via a new commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE). British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, speaking exclusively to GIVEMESPORT, was among those to slam the notion.
UEFA planned to boycott the World Cup, while other footballing bodies, such as CONCACAF, also rejected the scheme. Infantino has since scrapped the privatisation plan. Even so, he continues to face a major backlash.
Real Madrid Statement on Infantino’s FIFA Scheme
Champions League giants Real Madrid have now commented on the FIFA issue. In a statement, they praised UEFA for taking such a strong stance against Infantino’s proposal:
“Real Madrid CF welcomes FIFA’s decision to abandon its proposal for the partial sale of the commercial rights to its competitions. Our club believes this is good news for football, its institutions, and above all, for the millions of fans of our beloved sport.
“Real Madrid wishes to express its gratitude to UEFA, the confederations and federations, and all the institutions that firmly and responsibly opposed this project. Their unity and sense of duty protected football at a crucial moment.
“Clubs are the foundation upon which international football and the World Cup are built. They are the ones who discover, train, develop, and provide the national teams with the players who make these major competitions possible. International football and the World Cup are, above all, events of public interest, and they constitute a heritage that belongs to nations, fans, and society as a whole. Therefore, we believe they should never be treated as mere financial assets to be traded for the benefit of a select few.”
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The statement continued: “Real Madrid firmly opposes any attempt to sell future commercial revenue from competitions without assuming any of the associated costs or risks. It is the clubs that bear these costs and risks, and any initiative that seeks to appropriate future football revenue without assuming the responsibilities that generate it is unacceptable and should never be considered again.
“This is also the same principle that Real Madrid has consistently upheld at the national level. Our club opposed and did not participate in the operation whereby La Liga committed a percentage of the clubs’ future audiovisual revenues for fifty years in exchange for the entry of a private fund like CVC. Mortgaging for half a century revenues that belong to the clubs, who are the ones who bear all the costs and risks, sets a precedent that football must not repeat, whether in our country or internationally.”
La Liga President Wants Infantino Sacked
REUTERS/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake
It seems as though La Liga are in agreement with Madrid’s stance. In fact, the president of the Spanish league, Javier Tebas, has even called for Infantino to be sacked. On social media, he has claimed:
“Infantino should not continue. FIFA’s withdrawal of its proposal to privatise its competitions is good news. But it would be a grave mistake to believe that the governance problem has been solved by this. Continental and national federations, leagues, and players should not be content with the withdrawal of this proposal and consider the matter closed,” he continued. The issue is far deeper than that.”
He then listed more issues with Infantino’s time in charge, noting: “Have we already forgotten the withdrawal of the red card after political intervention? And the open investigation in the US Congress, which requested Gianni Infantino’s appearance over serious accusations? And the dropping of charges in the historic corruption cases within FIFA? And the shocking World Cup ticket prices? And the unilateral decisions regarding the international match calendar, the new competitions, and the tournament systems, which were adopted without a genuine process of dialogue and consensus with the parties concerned?”
He concluded: “For all these reasons, I believe that Gianni Infantino should not continue at the head of FIFA.”
European footballing body UEFA are among those to have also directly stated a loss of confidence in the FIFA president.