Sports desk: European football’s governing body, UEFA, has voted to boycott FIFA events – including the World Cup – if proposed sale of event to private investors goes ahead.
A statement issued on behalf of UEFA and its 55 national associations said that they “unanimously and unequivocally reject FIFA’s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors”.
The agreement at an emergency UEFA meeting comes two days after we revealed there was a plan to withdraw from FIFA’s showpiece tournaments in protest.
FIFA plans to set up a separate $20bn (£15bn) company to run its competitions, with 20% of it to be offered to external investors.
The lead investor in the subsidiary – to be called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) – is Joshua Kushner, the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
