Keep Your Filthy Orange Hands Off Our Ball

Is there nothing that the mango-stained devil incarnate doesn’t want to try to destroy?

He’s already well on the way to tanking the global economy, the Middle East, US media, freedoms and the justice system, whilst making even more money in the process (how much do you need, FFS?)... but now the Trump family orbit wants to get its filthy orange hands on the rights to the World Cup (presumably because the US won’t ever win it legally).

“Hold on, isn’t it already sponsored?” I hear you cry. Yes, but this is more than sponsorship. Let me explain…

FIFA wants to create a private company called FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE, which would take charge of the commercial rights and operational delivery of its competitions, including the World Cup. Broadcasting. Tickets. Sponsorship. Licensing. The whole shebang.

And the proposed investor group would be led by Thrive Eternal, founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, who is Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Handy. Trump is not named as an investor, but he is standing close enough to the cash for the usual orange glow to appear around it.

For instance, FIFA opened an office in Trump Tower last year. Pure coincidence? Well, Manhattan is notoriously short of office space.

FIFA says it would keep control, sell only a minority stake and use the investment to put more than $10 billion into football development around the world. Every one of FIFA’s 211 member associations could receive $20 million during the next four-year cycle if they approve the plan.

Not a bung, obviously. A completely unrelated expression of developmental generosity, offered just before they vote on whether to let the deal happen. Nothing to see here… please move along.

UEFA, to its credit, has gone absolutely bonkers. The English FA says it is deeply concerned about the lack of process, governance and detail. How British! But emergency talks are being held, and even a future World Cup boycott is being discussed.

Even our new Prime Minister has waded in. Andy Burnham said football does not belong to investors, but to the people in the stands and on the touchlines. Yes, he’s right, but there is something even more important at play here. [And as we know, Andy B reads my emails, “Hi again, Andy. Strap in… here we go”]

Private investors do not hand over billions because they love a nil-nil draw in the rain at Stoke. They invest because they expect a return. And once the return is the bit that matters, the questions change:

- Why hold the World Cup every four years when you could hold it every two?

- Why stop at 48 teams when 64 means more matches, more tickets, more broadcasters and more lovely commercial inventory?

- Why have one sponsor on the referee’s whistle when each blast could be brought to you by a cryptocurrency exchange in the Cayman Islands?

THIS is the pressure private money creates. A sponsor rents your audience. An investor buys a claim on your future income.

And there is only one reliable way to keep growing that income. More! More teams. More matches. More tournaments. More advertising. More expensive tickets. More football squeezed into a calendar already creaking like my knees after a ballroom comp.

The real issue here is what happens when the custodian of something starts behaving like its owner.

An owner asks: How much value can I extract from this? A custodian asks: How much value can I leave in it for the people who come next?

The best businesses make money precisely because they protect the things people value. Trust. Community. Quality. Meaning.

FIFA may legally control the World Cup. It may own the trademarks, negotiate the television deals and decide which corporate executive gets the best seat, whilst an actual supporter remortgages the house to sit behind a concrete pillar.

But it does not own ‘the game’.

The game belongs to the child kicking a scuffed ball against a garage door. The volunteer putting up nets on a freezing Sunday morning. The families passing shirts and stories down through generations. The supporters travelling hundreds of miles to watch their team lose one-nil to a goal that came off somebody’s backside.

Some things are worth more than money. And that is something that the mango-stained game show host will never, ever understand.