UEFA, European soccer’s 55-member governing body, is set to boycott the World Cup and all other FIFA-organized competitions in protest of a $20 billion Wall Street-style takeover of the global game, sources familiar with the matter told The Post.
The boycott blueprint — set to be formally rubber-stamped Thursday during emergency talks hosted from Switzerland that start at 9am Eastern — would see European nations withdraw from “all FIFA competitions” organized by the Zurich-based nonprofit.
Livid over Trump-loving FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s aggressive moves to commercialize global soccer, Europe’s soccer bosses are “very confident” they will secure “a landslide majority” of “more than 50 countries” to vote against his plans, according to insiders.
One source said that “it could even be a clean sweep” despite the head of the Czech soccer association initially indicating he supported the privatization idea.
If UEFA pulls the trigger Thursday, it will plunge FIFA into the darkest crisis of its 122-year history.
A boycott means the 2030 World Cup goes on without global powerhouses like England, France, Spain, and Germany — nations that have won every World Cup but one since 2006.
Without the continent’s biggest stars and deepest television markets, the World Cup is effectively crippled, meaning Infantino’s multibillion-dollar pitch to Wall Street could be dead on arrival.
The boycott would includes the men’s and women’s World Cups, youth championships, and the expanded Club World Cup, a global playoff between the top franchises from each continent.
However, European teams would continue playing in regional tournaments completely controlled by UEFA, such as the money-spinning Champions League and the European Championship.
Infantino’s controversial scheme aims to bundle the World Cup’s massive broadcasting, ticketing, and sponsorship rights into a new private subsidiary dubbed FIFA Forward Enterprise.
“He’s struggling to keep it together,” said one source close to UEFA of Infantino. “The one thing that’s unifying about him is that everyone hates him. But he’s so deluded is that he doesn’t think that’s true.”
The move marks a stunning escalation in the sport’s global civil war amid anger over a multibillion-dollar deal set to line the pockets of a private equity group close to President Trump’s in-laws, the Kushner family.
Infantino’s private equity plan, in which US banking giant JPMorgan is reportedly playing an advisory role, still needs approval from FIFA’s 211 member nations, including the United States.
If passed, Thrive Eternal — an American venture capital firm founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner — is expected to lead the investor group and snap up a 20% stake for just over $4.2 billion.
The Post has sought comment from UEFA, FIFA, Thrive Capital and JPMorgan.
Infantino has struck up a close relationship with the current commander-in-chief, even awarding him the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize after he failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The boycott threat follows weeks of intense scrutiny over the relationship between the two men.
Earlier this month, Trump admitted he directly called Infantino to demand FIFA review a red card issued to American striker Folarin Balogun during the World Cup, a move that successfully overturned the player’s mandatory suspension.
To sweeten the deal, Infantino is dangling a massive payday. The former lawyer is promising to hike development payouts for smaller federations from $8 million to a whopping $20 million through 2030, branding the cash grab as the “democratization” of soccer.
But the backlash has spilled from the sports pages into the halls of government across Europe, with politicians furious over the blatant corporatization of a cultural institution.
“Let me say this very directly. Football does not belong to investors,” left-wing British Prime Minister Andy Burnham thundered on social media Wednesday. “The World Cup is not a product. It is the greatest competition in world sport, and it was never anyone’s to sell.”
EU Sports Commissioner Glen Micallef took a thinly veiled shot at American corporate sports culture, telling reporters: “This isn’t baseball. The FIFA World Cup remains the greatest sporting tournament on the planet. The relentless commercialization of football has become corrosive.”
Because FIFA operates as a massive business in Europe, it must obey the European Union’s strict anti-monopoly laws. Recent EU court rulings made it clear that sports organizations cannot use their power to act like illegal monopolies and break free-market rules.
Even the typically reserved English Football Association threw its weight behind the boycott, slamming FIFA’s “lack of process and governance.” Hans-Joachim Watzke, vice-president of Germany’s soccer association and the former CEO of German giants Borussia Dortmund, echoed the continent’s fury, calling the private equity play an “outright attack on football.”
Infantino has already caused consternation among some European supporters by defending “dynamic pricing” that left fans shut out of stadiums due to skyrocketing ticket costs.
And this is not the first time European nations have poured scorn on his bid to bring private money into the game.
In 2018, Infantino floated a massive $25 billion deal with a consortium including Japan’s SoftBank to launch a revamped Club World Cup and a new global Nations League, but the proposal was swiftly abandoned due to intense pushback from UEFA.
The next men’s FIFA World Cup, scheduled for 2030, will be primarily hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. To mark the centenary of the tournament, the opening three matches will be played in South America, hosted by Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. The most recent World Cup took place in 2026, jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada
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