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Only weeks after the 2026 FIFA World Cup came to a close, Prime Minister Mark Carney criticized Gianni Infantino’s leadership as FIFA president.
“[FIFA] have their own procedures for making those determinations but certainly I don’t have confidence in Mr. Infantino after this point, given what transpired and given the nature of what transpired,” Carney said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Carney panned the association’s most recent controversy: Infantino’s plan to sell off part of FIFA’s commercial interests to private investors.
Under the proposal, Infantino suggested the formation of a commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) that would run competitions like the World Cup. FIFA’s plan was to raise up to $4.2 billion US by selling around a 20 per cent stake in FFE, valuing it at $20 billion US.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he doesn’t ‘have confidence’ in Gianni Infantino after the FIFA president faced backlash for a plan to sell stakes in competitions like the World Cup to private investors.
Infantino’s plan received pushback almost immediately, including from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). It released a statement saying all of its members would boycott FIFA competitions so long as the proposal remained on the table.
The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), of which Canada is a member, also rejected the plan.
Carlos Cordeiro, who represented FIFA on the White House Task Force for the World Cup, resigned his senior post over Infantino’s private equity plan.
“Carlos Cordeiro is someone I’ve known for more than three decades,” Carney said. “Very high integrity individual and he was [Infantino’s] adviser and had expertise in all the aspects of what was proposed and he was not consulted.”
“This is not how you run any business, a small business, let alone something that is a global responsibility like football.”
Following the pushback, Infantino said FIFA would scrap the proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup.
Throughout this year’s tournament — which Canada co-hosted alongside the U.S. and Mexico — Carney rubbed shoulders with Infantino, even helping the FIFA president hand out awards at the World Cup final alongside U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
“I’ve run a few organizations in my time,” Carney said. “Not to disclose to your closest advisers, your chief operating officer, your fellow board members, something of consequence that you’re even considering let alone proposing, that should be fatal and you lose confidence in that individual.”
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