World Cup 2026: Page 170 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One more in the Tolly

World Cup 2026

Big Willie Champ

Big Willie Champ anyone got a depaywalled version of the article? Archive.ph doesn't seem to be able to cache the article without the subcribe overlay.

Never mind, found it myself for anyone inteterested.

https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/world-cup-for-sale-gianni-infantino-fifa-wdvtsqfc6

In future you can use this site to depaywalled articles as it seems archive.ph doesn't seem to be worling on certain websites like the Times anymore.

https://removepaywalls.com/

Save it in your bookmarks for future reference.

Qwiss

Claudius An extreme outcome could be Kushner and his guys saying let's just build a permanent world cup zone in Saudi and have the competition there every two years. anyting is possible.

If you are selling it off its not just possible, its fairly likely. They've just lost golf, they'd only love to buy international football.

Meatwad

Claudius
arsene wenger is not a stupid man. he knows if you give 40m to the nigerian federation they won't spend 40m improving player development in that country. 5m might go towards that and then the other 35 is skimmed by crooks.

arsenal made him a filthy rich man who doesn't have to take shit from anyone for a paycheck. he's simply all aboard the crooked train. to quote the great bernie mac, "he's a greedy summabitch."

Dom

I'm fairly sure Wenger said back in the 2000s he admired Tony Blair. That was during a time when Blair was constantly in the news for sleaze scandals and cultivating shady dealings with Rupert Murdoch, wealthy tabloid kingpins and people who'd later be exposed as Epstein island pilgrims. The signs were there!

JazzG

Let’s see how Fifa respond

Gazza M

fair play to ceferin. he played a role in spiking the super league, and organised this boycott pretty swiftly.

Mirth

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/30/fifa-uefa-world-cup-infantino

AFC have also come out against it. GG.

Tam

Mirth Fair play to them for now, though I suspect if it wasn't a Kushner/Thirve enterprise, but a Saudi/UAE/Other M-E interest that partnered with Infantino first the story might be different.

tazmania

Fuck Infantino. Good one UEFA and AFC

Mirth

Gazza M

shout out to martyn Ziegler and Andrew Jennings for their FIFA coverage over the years, and whoever was leaking to them. the amount of dirt FIFA could have gotten away with without their journalism is crazy

JazzG

I think Infantino has got too greedy here and his bluff is now being called and could end up costing him his position. Other corrupt Football Association leaders around the world looking at him disgust thinking he wants to have all the pie and leave none for us!

Claudius

Of course CAF the last to get their shit together. The most vulnerable to corruption are those from nations where football doesn’t generate much revenue and thus FIFA income is impotent for everything from grassroots development to paying admin salaries. And other “stuff”. Just hope they do what’s right quickly whether in unison or individually

DiabyKungFu

Does anyone have or can link to some specific breakdown of why the fuck I am supposed to care about the particular capital structure of the World Cup? I've not followed this deeply but everything I've seen seems to take for granted the idea that I'm meant to find the fundamental idea of an equity purchase to be beyond the pale.

Claudius

DiabyKungFu it’s beyond the pale, mate. This isn’t a simple financing agreement. This is hands to FIFA Forward enterprise the ability to manage commercial aspects of World Cup. Thjs potentially leaves fans further exposed to ticket price spikes, restrictive broadcast models.

They did this without aligning their 200 members. And then tried to threaten them into complying by giving those who participate more value. It’s all gross

DiabyKungFu

Claudius This isn’t a simple financing agreement.

I genuinely haven't really been following this. How is this not a simple financing agreement?

Claudius This is hands to FIFA Forward enterprise the ability to manage commercial aspects of World Cup. Thjs potentially leaves fans further exposed to ticket price spikes, restrictive broadcast models.

This sounds like a simple financing agreement. If you purchase controlling equity then you get to run the operations.

Claudius They did this without aligning their 200 members. And then tried to threaten them into complying by giving those who participate more value. It’s all gross

Wasn't the idea that they needed to vote on this in order for it to go through and the members said "No" so it's not going through?

QuincyAbeyie

DiabyKungFu Fifa said that the nations that voted yes would get a sum of money while the nations that voted no would not get that sum of money if the suggestion went through.

Burnwinter

DiabyKungFu I genuinely haven't really been following this. How is this not a simple financing agreement?

FIFA is a not-for-profit that circulates the grand part of its huge revenues from competitions back to football ... with all the corruption that entails. This proposal would turn those competitions into first and foremost a clearing of profits for investors, a great unity of profiteering instead of a loose network of it. The UEFA statement does state this.

You can argue the toss but I'd rather FIFA's stakeholders were the varying levels of football associations and development organisations, despite their chaos, than a bunch of rapacious gangsters with the mindset of megalandlords.

Mirth

It's a financing agreement to circumvent all the principles that FIFA use to justify its existence and enrich a handful of corrupt individuals.

DiabyKungFu

QuincyAbeyie Fifa said that the nations that voted yes would get a sum of money while the nations that voted no would not get that sum of money if the suggestion went through.

Fair. This does seem needlessly coercive.

Burnwinter FIFA is a not-for-profit

Seems bad. For-profit enterprises have much more legible and coherent incentive structures.

Burnwinter

This could hardly be a more blatant hijack either: dragoon all the associations into supporting your reelection based on the huge profits of the World Cup, then reveal the secret plan that redirects those profits to your golf partners. To make it more blatant, you'd have to underwrite an imperial war then show up with the predatory capital for reconstruction of the war zone. 🤔

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