FIFA President Gianni Infantino withdrew his proposal to partially privatize the World Cup probably not because he genuinely believed that European teams would boycott the tournament. The more likely reason is that he realized he was losing support for his reelection as FIFA president. He may still fail to secure another term, but had he persisted with the proposal, defeat would have been almost certain.
Europe has once again shown that, when it acts in unity, it can be a formidable force, even against an adversary closely aligned with Trump. Infantino's proposal became associated with privatization and Trump-style corruption, both of which are deeply unpopular in Europe. Public opinion reacted in much the same way as it did to the proposed European Super League (ESL) a few years ago.
There is, of course, a degree of hypocrisy on the part of European federations and clubs, which have themselves been involved in blatant acts of privatization and corruption in the recent past. The mixture of non-profit and for-profit organizations that characterizes football will remain vulnerable to corruption as long as democratic public authorities are kept at arm's length and there is no global public regulator. Large democratic jurisdictions—today, perhaps only the European Union—can nevertheless act as an important constraint.
FIFA's peculiar democratic structure appears to have convinced Infantino that he could push ahead with plans that would enrich both himself and the Trump family while sharing part of the spoils with the smaller national federations, all of which formally enjoy the same voting power as the wealthiest and most influential federations.
A World Cup without European teams is probably a credible threat, provided European unity is maintained. I am not entirely convinced that European federations would have remained united all the way to the end, but this time unity, backed by public opinion, proved sufficient.
Would the national federations themselves have maintained their cohesion? One can easily imagine, for example, Spanish fans and players putting pressure on their federation to participate in the World Cup.
FIFA controls the World Cup. Football is the world's most global and institutionally unified sport, and there is enormous demand for tournaments of this kind. It would not be the same if there were two competing World Cups and two different world champions.
International governing bodies such as FIFA and UEFA face an inherent conflict of interest because they are both regulators and commercial promoters. They also compete with one another to control the tournaments that attract the largest audiences. Each seeks to maximize the overall value of the game while securing the largest possible share of the revenues for itself.
European federations, European institutions, and, above all, European public opinion place significant limits on the influence of global plutocracy over football because Europe remains the dominant force in the sport. If Europeans were equally dominant in semiconductors or artificial intelligence, they would wield comparable influence in those fields as well.
Corruption and success are perfectly compatible. Indeed, success attracts tycoons and other actors seeking to capture rents. The European Super League project and Infantino's failed attempt to partially privatize the World Cup both reveal the institutional fragility and instability of global football governance, despite the sport's extraordinary success.
