Sports18 August, 20262 min read
Richard Masters Says FIFA Pressed Self-Destruct Button Over World Cup Investment Plan
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Richard Masters criticised Infantino's World Cup investment plan as a self-destructive move. Plan to sell World Cup rights to investors and form new company abandoned.
World Cup stake plan
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters criticized FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s World Cup sell-off plan, saying the organisation has "pressed the self-destruct button" by delivering "a self-inflicted wound". Masters said Infantino’s attempt to create a new company to manage commercial and ticketing rights for all FIFA competitions, including the World Cups, was later abandoned after widespread criticism from several confederations led by Uefa. He also said the Premier League backs the English Football Association’s withdrawal of support for Infantino and called for a "unity candidate" for the FIFA presidency.
Masters told BBC Sport that "I don't think the Fifa should be ever contemplating selling off a stake in the World Cup," arguing FIFA should hold the competition in trust for the future of football. The BBC reported that Infantino is scheduled to stand for a fourth term as president in March, with no candidate yet put forward before a 18 November deadline.
Pressure after FIFA fallout
Masters’ comments came as FIFA faced internal and external pressure after the aborted Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, which Uefa threatened to boycott over. The Daily Mirror said Masters suggested the criticism was "all of FIFA’s own making" and described his view that the organisation has now called for a new president of world football’s governing body. FlashScore UK quoted Masters saying, "This is a problem of FIFA's making," adding that "This is a self-inflicted wound" and that the organisation has "pressed the self-destruct button".
The BBC also reported that Masters was speaking in a wide-ranging interview before the start of the new Premier League season, which gets under way on Friday when champions Arsenal host promoted Coventry. In the same BBC account, Masters said he was worried about how FIFA handled a red card review at the World Cup, linking the issue to the need for clearer processes.
Red card review and election
Masters said the Premier League is entering a new era that will be "very hard to predict" while he defended the league’s quality and addressed FIFA’s handling of the Folarin Balogun red card situation at the World Cup. The BBC reported that Balogun was shown a straight red for a foul on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic, and that President Donald Trump asked FIFA to review the automatic one-match ban, which was then suspended for a year. Masters said, "We worry that about that particular episode, and of course we don't know what happens," and he added, "I don't understand why FIFA doesn't have a very straightforward red card review process in place".
He argued that FIFA is supposed to uphold "non-political inference within the game of football" and said it is part of its promise that it won’t allow it in the rest of the game. With the FIFA presidential election approaching and a 18 November deadline for challengers, Masters said any emerging "unity candidate" should put FIFA reform, and perhaps reform of the president’s role, on their agenda.