Europe May Be Right About FIFA Governance — But That Does Not Settle the Economic Question

The extraordinary confrontation now unfolding inside FIFA is being presented largely as another chapter in the increasingly troubled political career of Gianni Infantino. That interpretation is too narrow. Infantino is undoubtedly at the centre of the controversy, and his leadership style, decision-making and handling of the FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal deserve intense scrutiny. But beneath […]

The post Europe May Be Right About FIFA Governance — But That Does Not Settle the Economic Question appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

The extraordinary confrontation now unfolding inside FIFA is being presented largely as another chapter in the increasingly troubled political career of Gianni Infantino. That interpretation is too narrow. Infantino is undoubtedly at the centre of the controversy, and his leadership style, decision-making and handling of the FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal deserve intense scrutiny. But beneath the personality politics is a much bigger struggle: who controls the economic future of global football, who captures its commercial wealth and how much of that wealth should flow back to the countries that collectively constitute FIFA?

By Brighton Musonza

The collapse of FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE, therefore should not be dismissed as merely an Infantino miscalculation. It is better understood as the latest episode in a much older structural conflict between European football’s extraordinary commercial power and the much larger political constituency represented by Africa, Asia, Oceania and parts of the Americas.

FIFA has 211 member associations, each with one vote at Congress. UEFA has 55 FIFA members, CAF has 54, the AFC has 46 FIFA members, CONCACAF has 35 FIFA members, CONMEBOL has 10 and the OFC has 11. That produces a simple but politically important reality: Europe cannot determine the direction of FIFA by itself.

That arithmetic is central to understanding what is happening.

This is not a defence of Infantino. I remain highly critical of his leadership and of the manner in which the FFE proposal was advanced. The lack of transparency, the apparent absence of adequate consultation and the extraordinary speed with which such a consequential restructuring was introduced are legitimate reasons for concern. Indeed, the subsequent collapse of the proposal and the public criticism from senior FIFA figures have demonstrated how badly the process was handled.

But criticising Infantino does not require accepting the proposition that the underlying economic argument is illegitimate.

It is not.

What FIFA Forward Enterprise was actually trying to do

At its core, FFE was an attempt to create a commercial company within the FIFA ecosystem that would consolidate broadcasting, sponsorship, licensing, ticketing and the operational delivery of FIFA tournaments.

FIFA proposed a new subsidiary with an initial implied equity valuation of about US$20 billion and a capital raise of up to US$4.2 billion from minority, non-controlling investors. FIFA said it would retain control of the company and, critically, retain exclusive authority over football governance, competitions, regulations, the international match calendar and sporting decisions.

The financial proposition was extraordinarily large.

The proposed FIFA Fast Forward Programme would have given each of the 211 member associations access to as much as US$20 million in exceptional immediate funding. The regular FIFA Forward allocation would then rise to US$20 million per association for 2027–2030, US$22 million for 2031–2034 and US$24 million for 2035–2038.

In other words, an African football association that currently struggles to finance pitches, academies, women’s football, refereeing, administration and national teams could potentially have gained access to tens of millions of dollars over successive cycles.

That is not a trivial proposition. It is potentially transformational.

FIFA currently allocates substantially less. Under Forward 3.0, the 2023–2026 cycle provides each member association with up to US$8 million across the cycle, including operational funding and project financing. FIFA’s revised budget for 2026 also includes a US$660 million Football Development Fund arising from excess revenues from the World Cup cycle.

FFE was therefore proposing something much more ambitious: not simply another development grant, but an attempt to create a much larger and potentially more permanent financial relationship between FIFA’s global commercial machine and its 211 national football systems.

That is why it deserves to be analysed as an economic restructuring rather than simply an attempted “sale of the World Cup”.

The phrase “selling the World Cup” obscures the real argument

The most powerful political weapon used against FFE was the assertion that FIFA was trying to sell the World Cup.

It is an emotionally effective description. It is also economically imprecise.

FIFA was not proposing to sell the World Cup itself to a private company. The proposal was to create a FIFA-controlled commercial subsidiary and sell minority, non-controlling interests in that commercial entity. FIFA explicitly said it would retain control of the entity and retain authority over the sporting and governance dimensions of the game.

That distinction does not eliminate the legitimate questions surrounding the proposal. If investors receive an economic interest in a company whose value derives from FIFA’s commercial rights, then the economic consequences of that transaction deserve intense scrutiny. What assets would sit inside FFE? What rights would be licensed to it? For how long? How would the valuation be established? Who would ultimately benefit from future appreciation? What governance protections would exist? What would happen if investors wanted to exit?

Those are serious questions.

But they are different questions from whether FIFA had literally sold the World Cup.

The language of a “World Cup sell-off” simplified a much more sophisticated debate about the ownership, financing and monetisation of global football.

The Formula One comparison is more important than many critics admit

There is a useful comparison in Formula One.

The motor sports Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) regulates and governs the sport, while the commercial rights to Formula One sit in a separate commercial structure. The FIA approved the transfer of the Formula One commercial rights-holding company, Delta Topco, to Liberty Media in 2017. Under the long-term arrangements, Formula One holds the exclusive commercial rights while the FIA remains responsible for sporting, technical and regulatory governance.

That separation has not made Formula One less commercially powerful. Quite the opposite.

The lesson is that governance and commercialisation do not necessarily have to reside inside the same institutional structure.

The question for FIFA is whether it could create a similar separation without surrendering the institutional safeguards necessary to protect football’s global character.

That is a legitimate question. It is not inherently an absurd proposition.

Indeed, the very success of Formula One demonstrates why sports governance increasingly involves a distinction between the body that regulates the competition and the commercial entity that maximises the value of the underlying sporting property.

The critical difference, however, is ownership.

Formula One’s commercial rights ultimately ended up in the hands of Liberty Media, whereas FIFA was proposing to retain majority control of FFE while allowing outside investors to purchase a minority interest. That distinction is fundamental.

Europe has an economic advantage that its FIFA voting power does not fully explain

This is where the argument becomes particularly uncomfortable for European football.

Europe is overwhelmingly dominant in the commercial football economy. Its major domestic leagues, clubs, broadcasters and sponsorship markets generate extraordinary amounts of money. Reuters has noted the enormous disparity between FIFA’s global revenues and the much larger European football economy, with Europe’s leading leagues and clubs generating tens of billions of euros annually.

The result is a peculiar institutional arrangement.

The economic centre of football is overwhelmingly European, but the political ownership of FIFA is global.

The players may originate in Africa, South America or Asia. The supporters may be in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Harare, Mumbai, Jakarta or Kingston. The national teams may represent countries with comparatively small economies. Yet much of the highest-value club football, media rights and sponsorship activity is concentrated in Europe.

This creates a structural imbalance between where football creates social and political value and where its highest commercial value is captured.

An African teenager can become the raw talent from which a European club eventually generates hundreds of millions of euros in sporting and commercial value. The European club pays a transfer fee, wages and development compensation, but the broader football ecosystem from which that talent emerged does not necessarily participate proportionately in the long-term appreciation of the player’s commercial value.

The global football economy therefore operates much like many other international commodity chains: value is generated across multiple territories but disproportionately captured at the most commercially developed end of the chain.

That is precisely why the distribution of FIFA’s commercial wealth matters.

Africa is not merely a recipient of FIFA money

One of the most intellectually lazy arguments in this debate is that African football associations should simply be grateful for whatever FIFA sends them.

That misunderstands the nature of the relationship. Africa is not a passive beneficiary of global football. Africa is one of the principal producers of football talent.

European football depends heavily on African players. The continent supplies players who become commercially valuable assets in European leagues, national teams and competitions. African supporters also constitute an enormous consumer market for European football content. European clubs benefit from African television audiences, merchandising, digital engagement and player markets.

There is therefore an economic relationship running in both directions.

FIFA’s own Club Benefits Programme demonstrates that the governing body recognises the economic contribution made by clubs that release players for World Cup duty. For Qatar 2022, FIFA allocated US$209 million to clubs across all six confederations, paying compensation according to the number of days players spent with their national teams.

That system is important because it exposes the basic economic principle.

Football has multiple contributors.

National associations contribute players, competitions, supporters and sporting legitimacy. Clubs contribute player development and salaries. Broadcasters contribute distribution. Sponsors contribute capital. Governments contribute infrastructure and security. Fans contribute attention.

The question is not whether these participants deserve something.

The question is how much each should receive from the value created collectively.

The extraordinary economics of FIFA’s commercial machine

The scale of FIFA’s commercial operation makes the argument even more significant.

In 2025 alone, FIFA generated US$2.66 billion in revenue and was on course to exceed its US$13 billion revenue target for the 2023–2026 cycle. Television broadcasting generated about US$1.04 billion in 2025, while marketing rights generated almost US$965 million. Licensing generated another US$97 million, while hospitality and ticketing generated approximately US$410 million.

This is not a small sporting federation. It is one of the world’s most powerful intellectual-property organisations. And its most valuable asset is not a stadium, an office building or a technology platform. It is global football itself.

The commercial value comes from the extraordinary fact that 211 football associations recognise FIFA’s authority, that billions of people consume its competitions and that hundreds of millions of players participate in the sport around the world.

That gives FIFA something few multinational corporations possess: a global network of political legitimacy combined with an extraordinarily valuable entertainment product.

The real question is therefore whether that value should be monetised more aggressively and, if so, who should benefit.

The American and Gulf dimensions cannot be ignored

There is another layer to the dispute that is often overlooked.

The modern football economy is increasingly shaped by the interaction between American capital, global media companies and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth.

The 2025 FIFA commercial portfolio illustrates the geographical diversity of the capital behind modern football. FIFA’s partners included American corporations such as Coca-Cola, Visa and Home Depot, while Qatar Airways and Saudi Arabia’s PIF also featured prominently in FIFA’s commercial ecosystem. FIFA’s 2025 accounts show that marketing rights alone generated nearly US$965 million.

It would be too simplistic to say that most FIFA revenue is generated by American companies or that American corporations are fundamentally dependent on Gulf sovereign wealth. The commercial structure is considerably more diverse than that.

But the broader observation is valid: the old European football economy is no longer the only source of capital shaping global football.

American private equity, technology companies, media conglomerates and investment funds have become increasingly influential. At the same time, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have accumulated extraordinary financial capacity through sovereign wealth and energy revenues and have become increasingly ambitious participants in global sport.

The result is a new football political economy in which European football institutions, American capital and Gulf sovereign wealth increasingly intersect.

That is the real strategic environment in which FFE emerged.

Why Qatar and Saudi Arabia matter to the argument

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are not simply football sponsors or tournament hosts. They represent a different model of capital deployment.

Their sovereign wealth gives them the capacity to make long-term investments in sport, infrastructure, media, tourism and global entertainment that many African states simply cannot replicate.

That creates an interesting coalition of interests. For developing football nations, the objective is greater participation in the commercial value of global football. For Gulf investors, the objective is greater influence over a global sports industry.

For American investors, the objective is access to valuable sports intellectual property and the extraordinary growth opportunities associated with global media and entertainment.

For FIFA, the objective is to maximise the commercial value of its global portfolio. These interests are not identical. But they can converge.

That is why the FFE proposal cannot be understood simply as “Infantino versus UEFA”. It sits inside a much larger transition in the global sports economy.

The political arithmetic explains why Africa matters so much

The political mathematics of FIFA is devastatingly simple.

Europe has 55 FIFA votes.

Africa has 54.

Asia has 46.

CONCACAF has 35.

South America has 10.

Oceania has 11.

That gives Africa and Asia a combined 100 votes before adding Oceania or other regions. Europe cannot impose a global FIFA settlement on its own.

This is precisely why African football politics matters so much.

It also explains why the current confrontation should not automatically be interpreted as a European struggle to “save football” from an African or developing-world constituency.

There are legitimate European concerns about transparency, governance and commercialisation. Those concerns deserve to be heard.

But there is also a legitimate counterargument from poorer football nations: why should the countries with the greatest economic power automatically determine how the commercial value of global football is structured when they do not possess a majority of FIFA’s political membership and they also enjoy recruitment of players from elsewhere, and broadcast their football in those small, poor countries?

European football has become an extraordinarily powerful television product across Africa, and the betting industry has attached itself to that popularity with remarkable efficiency. For millions of African fans, European football is no longer simply entertainment; it has become a daily commercial ecosystem of live matches, betting markets, odds, promotions and constant digital engagement. The combination can be intensely habit-forming, particularly where betting is available through mobile phones and promoted alongside the very football that attracts the audience.

The economic consequence for African football is profound. The more attention African consumers devote to the Premier League, Champions League and other European competitions, the less time, money and emotional investment is necessarily available for domestic leagues.

In smaller African countries, where the local football economy is already fragile, this can become a vicious cycle: weak domestic competitions attract smaller audiences, smaller audiences produce less broadcasting and sponsorship revenue, limited revenues prevent clubs from improving their product, and the resulting poor product pushes even more supporters towards European football.

Betting adds another layer to the problem. It can extract disposable income from households that could otherwise be spent on local businesses, entertainment and community activities, while creating serious social costs where gambling becomes harmful or compulsive. The irony is that African consumers can simultaneously become some of the most enthusiastic consumers of European football while the domestic football industries around them struggle to develop commercially sustainable audiences.

This is therefore not merely a question of football preference. It is a question of economic value extraction. African audiences generate enormous commercial value for European leagues, broadcasters, sponsors and betting companies, yet relatively little of that economic value is recycled into building competitive domestic football ecosystems across the continent.

If African football is expected to become financially sustainable, the conversation cannot stop at accusing African administrators of poor governance. It must also examine the structure of the global football economy and ask where the money generated by African supporters ultimately goes.

The long-term challenge is not to prevent Africans from watching European football. That would be unrealistic. It is to build domestic leagues that are sufficiently competitive, professionally managed and commercially attractive that African consumers can be passionate about both.

A continent should not have to choose between being an excellent consumer of European football and becoming an economically successful producer and owner of its own football product.

That is the question Europe cannot answer simply by invoking its economic dominance.

The African position should not be reduced to loyalty to Infantino

It is also wrong to assume that African support for Infantino is necessarily evidence of political manipulation.

There are undoubtedly political relationships involved. There are also institutional interests.

African football associations depend heavily on FIFA development funding because their domestic commercial ecosystems are much weaker than those of Europe. FIFA’s Forward programme has become a significant source of football infrastructure and operational funding across the continent. FIFA says that Forward 3.0 supports all 211 associations and that its current cycle represents a substantial increase in development investment.

Reuters has reported that leading African football administrators continue to support Infantino, partly because FIFA funding is vital to associations operating with weak infrastructure and limited domestic sponsorship.

That is not necessarily irrational. For an African football association, the question is not simply whether Infantino is personally likeable. It is whether the international system is delivering more resources for football development.

A federation that has historically struggled to maintain pitches, pay coaches, develop referees, run women’s football and finance national teams may reasonably look at an additional US$20 million and conclude that it represents an opportunity that should not be sacrificed lightly.

The criticism should therefore be directed at the structure and transparency of the transaction, not at African associations for recognising the economic value of additional investment.

The argument that Africans have fallen for propaganda deserves scrutiny

There is certainly a danger that African football debates become excessively dependent on European media framing.

The language matters.

If the dominant description is “FIFA sells the World Cup”, the African reader is immediately invited to understand the proposal as an act of dispossession.

If the description is “FIFA creates a commercial subsidiary and offers minority equity to investors in exchange for US$4.2 billion of new capital to increase football development funding”, the question becomes much more complicated.

Neither description should be accepted uncritically. The first can exaggerate what was legally being proposed. The second can understate the risks surrounding valuation, governance and future commercial control.

The correct African response should therefore not be to repeat FIFA’s public-relations argument or UEFA’s public-relations argument.

It should be to ask a harder question: What institutional arrangement produces the greatest long-term economic return for African football while protecting the governance and integrity of the game?

That is the question African football administrators should be answering.

Europe May Be Right About Governance — But That Does Not Settle the Economic Question 

UEFA’s opposition to FIFA’s commercial restructuring cannot simply be dismissed as European selfishness. There are genuine and serious governance questions surrounding the proposed FIFA Forward Enterprise, particularly the speed with which the initiative emerged, the proposed valuation of the commercial entity, the involvement of external investors and the extent to which FIFA’s 211 member associations were adequately consulted before such a consequential restructuring was placed on the table.

But there is an equally important question that deserves to be asked: how much did UEFA already know about the direction in which FIFA was moving?

It would be difficult to believe that UEFA, as FIFA’s most powerful confederation and one of the principal institutional actors in world football, was completely unaware that major discussions concerning FIFA’s future commercial architecture were taking place. Aleksander Čeferin’s decision to boycott the World Cup was itself a highly political act, and it would be extraordinary to suggest that UEFA’s leadership was unaware of the wider institutional and commercial issues being debated around FIFA during the tournament period.

That does not mean UEFA approved the FFE proposal. It does not mean UEFA accepted its structure. Nor does prior awareness remove the legitimate questions surrounding transparency, valuation or investor rights. But it does raise an important distinction between being unaware of a proposal and disagreeing with a proposal whose broader direction was already known within the upper levels of world football.

The distinction matters because the current narrative risks presenting FFE as though it suddenly appeared from nowhere.

It did not.

FIFA has been moving for years towards becoming a much larger global commercial organisation, expanding competitions, increasing development funding and searching for new ways of monetising its intellectual property and worldwide football network. The proposed commercial entity was an extension of that trajectory rather than an entirely disconnected idea.

The real question is ownership of future growth

The most important part of the FFE debate is therefore not the US$4.2 billion.

It is the future. If FIFA’s commercial rights continue to grow, who captures that growth? If the World Cup becomes more valuable, who benefits?

If women’s football becomes a multibillion-dollar global industry, who owns the commercial upside? If Africa’s football audience expands dramatically, who captures the value of that audience?

If Asian football becomes commercially powerful, will Asian associations simply receive development grants, or will they participate in the underlying economic value of the global football business? These are questions about ownership.

And ownership is much more important than grants.

A poor African country does not become economically empowered merely because FIFA gives its football association US$3 million or US$20 million every four years.

That is development assistance.

A fundamentally different model would allow developing football nations to participate in the capital appreciation and commercial revenues generated by the global football system.

That is economic ownership. The distinction is enormous.

What Africa should demand from any future commercial model

The failure of FFE should not mean returning to the status quo. Africa should use this moment to demand a much better commercial architecture.

Any future FIFA commercial entity should have independently audited accounts, an independently established valuation, transparent asset and rights schedules, clear limits on investor rights, strict conflict-of-interest rules and full disclosure of all beneficial owners.

Most importantly, African associations should demand that a meaningful proportion of the commercial value created by FIFA’s global ecosystem be permanently reinvested in football development.

That investment should not disappear into recurrent administrative expenditure.

It should build academies, training centres, pitches, stadiums, women’s football systems, referee development, sports medicine, digital ticketing, broadcasting infrastructure and commercially sustainable domestic leagues.

The objective should be to move African football from being primarily a consumer and talent supplier to becoming a producer and owner of football value.

That is a much more ambitious proposition than asking FIFA for larger grants.

Zimbabwe should be watching this very closely

For countries such as Zimbabwe, the implications are especially significant.

Zimbabwe does not need another political argument about whether Infantino is a hero or villain. It needs to ask what global football capital could do to rebuild the country’s football economy.

A properly structured FIFA commercial redistribution system could theoretically finance national training infrastructure, regional academies, stadium rehabilitation, women’s football, youth competitions, digital administration, refereeing and professional club development at a scale that domestic football revenues cannot currently support.

But money alone will not solve the problem.

Zimbabwe would need institutional capacity capable of converting football grants into productive assets.

That means professional financial management, procurement controls, audited accounts, commercial strategy, data systems and measurable development outcomes.

Otherwise, US$20 million can disappear just as quickly as US$3 million. The lesson from FFE is therefore not that Africa should blindly support any FIFA proposal promising more money.

The lesson is that Africa should negotiate from a position of collective strength.

The collapse of FFE does not settle the argument

The FFE proposal has now been withdrawn following the extraordinary backlash. FIFA’s secretary general Mattias Grafström and Arsène Wenger have publicly criticised or distanced themselves from aspects of the process, while UEFA has threatened further action. The political consequences for Infantino are still unfolding ahead of the next FIFA presidential election.

But the withdrawal does not make the underlying economic problem disappear. FIFA will still need to decide how to commercialise its global portfolio.

It will still need to finance football development.

It will still confront the enormous disparity between European football’s commercial power and the economic circumstances of many of its 211 member associations.

And developing football nations will still ask why they should remain merely recipients of development funding when they are essential participants in the production of global football’s cultural and commercial value.

The next proposal may therefore look very different from FFE. It may involve a different ownership structure.

It may involve long-term licensing rather than equity. It may involve regional investment vehicles. It may involve sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors, broadcasters or technology companies.

It may even involve a structure modelled more closely on Formula One, where sporting governance and commercial rights are separated.

But the economic pressure for change will remain.

The football world is entering a new political economy

For decades, the European football establishment enjoyed something close to an economic monopoly over elite club football.

That world is changing.

American investment funds are buying clubs and sports properties. Middle Eastern sovereign wealth is building football ecosystems. Asian markets are becoming increasingly important. African players remain central to the talent supply chain. Global streaming is changing the economics of broadcasting. Women’s football is expanding. FIFA itself is becoming increasingly sophisticated as a global media and entertainment organisation.

The result is a football economy in transition. Europe is trying to protect an extraordinarily valuable ecosystem that it has spent decades building.

Africa and other developing regions are asking why the global game should continue to reproduce a system in which they provide enormous cultural value, players and audiences while receiving relatively limited participation in the commercial upside.

Neither side has an automatic moral monopoly. Europe has legitimate concerns about governance.

FIFA has legitimate arguments about global development. African and Asian associations have legitimate claims for a larger share of football’s economic value.

American capital has legitimate commercial interests. Gulf investors have legitimate ambitions to participate in global sport.

The challenge is to construct an institutional system in which these interests can coexist without allowing any one constituency to capture the game.

This is not about defending Infantino

It is important to make the distinction clearly.

One can believe that Gianni Infantino has handled the FFE affair badly and still believe that the underlying question of football’s economic distribution is legitimate.

One can demand transparency without defending UEFA’s economic dominance. One can criticise private equity without believing that FIFA’s existing commercial model is optimal. One can support African football without automatically supporting every decision made by FIFA’s president.

And one can oppose Infantino without allowing European football institutions to define the future of global football simply because they possess the largest clubs, leagues and commercial markets.

That is the intellectual trap into which much of the current debate has fallen.

The issue is bigger than the man.

The next battle will be over who gets to write the rules

The most consequential question arising from the collapse of FFE is therefore not whether Infantino survives politically.

It is who writes the next proposal. If the next model is written exclusively in Europe, the developing world will have lost an opportunity.

If it is written exclusively by FIFA’s central administration, governance concerns will remain. If it is written exclusively by private equity, football risks becoming another financial asset class. If it is written exclusively by Gulf sovereign wealth, different questions about concentration of capital and influence will emerge.

The better solution is a genuinely global commercial architecture in which FIFA’s 211 members have transparent ownership, voting safeguards, financial participation and enforceable protections over the sporting integrity of the game.

Africa should be demanding precisely that.

The final irony

There is an extraordinary irony at the centre of this dispute.

The World Cup is arguably the most successful global demonstration of what can happen when football transcends national borders. Yet the economic system surrounding it remains profoundly unequal.

The players are global. The supporters are global. The television audience is global. The sponsors are global. The capital is increasingly global.

But the commercial concentration remains heavily tilted towards the richest football markets.

That cannot remain the permanent architecture of the world’s game.

The FFE proposal may have been badly conceived, badly communicated and politically mishandled. Its withdrawal may ultimately prove necessary. But dismissing the entire idea because Infantino presented it badly would be an intellectual mistake.

The question it raised is unavoidable.

Who owns the economic future of world football?

Europe cannot answer that question alone. FIFA cannot answer it alone. Neither can America, Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

And Africa should certainly not allow other people to answer it on its behalf.

With Africa, the problem begins with the persistent stereotype that its football administrators are inherently corrupt, incapable and unfit to manage serious financial resources, and that African football therefore does not deserve meaningful access to global football finance.

Yet this narrative conveniently overlooks the enormous financial leakages within the supposedly more sophisticated European football system, where billions of dollars circulate through agents and other intermediaries operating around the transfer market.

The issue, therefore, should not be whether African football is somehow uniquely incapable of handling global capital, but whether the entire football industry — European and African alike — is subject to sufficiently strong governance, transparency and accountability.

The 211 FIFA associations collectively represent the political architecture of world football. Their players, supporters, markets and competitions create the global football economy. The next stage should therefore be about turning that political membership into meaningful economic participation.

That is the debate worth having. Not whether the World Cup was “sold”. Not whether Infantino is personally liked.

Not whether UEFA is right about everything.

And certainly not whether Africans should simply cheer for one faction against another.

The real issue is much bigger: football’s commercial wealth is being reorganised, and the poorest football nations have a historic opportunity to demand that they move from being beneficiaries of the global game to becoming participants in its ownership and economic value creation.

That is the battle that matters.

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