October 16 – Perhaps the only significant victory for Infantino’s confederation opponents at the FIFA Council meeting yesterday was that they forced FIFA’s hand to more than double subsidies for the 211 member associations.
At the FIFA Congress in April, FIFA President Gianni Infantino proudly announced an increase in the budget for FIFA Forward 4.0 funding for national associations to $10 million in grants available for the 2027-30 cycle. It was a $2 million increase to the $8 million FIFA Forward 3.0 grants.
Infantino said that only under his leadership have the federations been so well rewarded.
But with the World Cup surpassing $15 billion in revenue and FIFA’s reserves expected to reach $6 billion, FIFA made no move to share its newfound wealth with its members until it was forced to reassess after a joint letter to Infantino from UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and Concacaf president Victor Montagliani.
They proposed that development funding should be doubled to $20 million per federation and that if reserves exceed $6 billion, that additional money should also be distributed to members.
Caught napping and suddenly looking parsimonious, and in the wake of Infantino’s FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) World Cup rights sale frenzy, FIFA scrambled quickly to put together a last-minute proposal for approval at the Council meeting. His proposal, called the FIFA Surplus Scholarship Program, increased the development funding available to each federation by $15 million, for a total of $25 million over the four-year cycle.
This funding came with conditions on how it could be spent. In the past, these conditions have made it difficult for a large number of FAs to receive their full grant allocations. This meant that a number of more suitable development programs were shelved in favor of meeting the rules rather than the needs of local football.
The Council argued that criteria for access to money should be eased to allow projects to move forward, and that the political strings attached to the release of money should be cut once and for all.
It was an important victory for Montagliani in particular. Concacaf has several small confederations that they feel have to pay undue sponsorship to FIFA to free up their funding. At a meeting of Concacaf presidents before the Council meeting, Montagliani and the other Concacaf council members were given an unequivocal mandate from the MA presidents to get FIFA to release more funds.
Infantino had been politicking the Caribbean with FIFA member association staff. Many of the Caribbean presidents had felt compelled, because of Infantino’s control over the grant money, to show him their support. As Montagliani has handed over more money for these MAs, many will now be in a position to be more independent in their support for the next FIFA president. For Infantino it is a blow. Not only has he been caught withholding grant money, he has also lost control of the powerful money belt he wields over the federations to ensure their support.
Infantino has a different take and a PR twist on the subsidies (see video). But for the national associations most in need of grant funding, it should now come without the threats of returning political patronage.
The increased development grant funding that FIFA proposed for the confederations was proportionately considerably less generous in the long term. For the 2027-30 cycle, the six confederations will receive an additional $33 million on top of the $66 million already budgeted through FIFA Forward 4.0. For the 2031-34 cycle they will receive an additional $33 million, bringing the total to $32 million over the eight-year period. $33 million in 2027 is much less in real terms than $33 million in 2034.
Zonal and regional associations will receive Solidarity Surplus funding of an additional $2.75 million each, on top of the $5.5 million budgeted through FIFA Forward 4.0.
Contact the writer of this story at (email protected)
