Шинэ Зеландын хөлбөмбөгийн холбоо Жанни Инфантиног дэмжихээс татгалзлаа

“I feel like there are a lot of people who are hedging their bets, sitting on a fence or waiting to see the way this falls,” says Andrew Pragnell, the chief executive of New Zealand Football (NZF).

Global football stands divided after the collapse of FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s proposal to sell a stake in FIFA’s commercial and event operations to private investors including Thrive Eternal, headed up by Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared.

For Infantino’s long-standing critics in the sport, it proved a bridge too far and efforts are underway to force him out of office. The leadership of UEFA, the European confederation, Concacaf, the confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean, and the Asian confederations last week joined together to release an open letter, in which they said trust had been broken in FIFA’s leadership “through deception.” A previous statement from Concacaf called for a “comprehensive reckoning with this presidency”, while UEFA stated it had “lost confidence” in Infantino.

Early next year, FIFA will hold its presidential election and, so far, Infantino is the sole candidate. FIFA operates a one-member-one-vote system, meaning that each of its 211 member associations have equal voting rights. For now, it remains unclear how Infantino would fare should a rival contender emerge, or whether he can be compelled to resign. He appears to maintain support from South America and Africa, while Oceania has not moved against him collectively, with the confederation praising the “progress” made under Infantino.

Yet Oceania’s most successful football nation, New Zealand, last week announced it had withdrawn its support for Infantino’s candidature, following several European countries including England, Wales, Scotland, Serbia, Finland and Croatia in doing so.

New Zealand Football’s statement on the 2027 FIFA Presidential candidacy. pic.twitter.com/VjVVAZ0YVo

— New Zealand Football 🇳🇿 (@NZ_Football) August 14, 2026

As executives around the world jockey for position, most have reserved their comments for press releases. New Zealand’s Pragnell, therefore, stands out as a football executive prepared to talk at length and in detail on the matter.

“A really important part of leadership in football is being transparent and open to the general public about the decisions you take,” he told The Athletic in a telephone interview. “This issue around the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme has generated global concern. There needs to be more leadership speaking about it and speaking publicly about their views.”

FIFA’s lack of consultation with member federations was such that Pragnell found out about the proposal when he woke up in New Zealand to “text messages from media.” Infantino’s plans blindsided the FIFA Council. FIFA’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour spoke out, eventually costing him his job, and described it as “one man’s” proposal. Soon after, a media release came from FIFA unveiling the plan, but only after it had been leaked to The Times and The Financial Times.

Over 24 hours later, the federations received a deck written up by J.P. Morgan, the bank which had worked with Infantino and Kushner on the secret plan, setting out the bare bones of the proposal. Yet Pragnell was among many executives around the world wondering why FIFA, an organisation which earned over $15 billion in the cycle including the 2026 men’s World Cup in North America, required external investment from private equity. He also wondered whether an enterprise value of just over $20 billion for FIFA’s commercial and events propositions may be an undervaluation.

“There were so many concerning angles,” Pragnell says. “The question was why. Why private equity? Why now? How was the valuation worked up? Why Thrive Eternal? It wasn’t clear what problem private equity was trying to fix. FIFA sits on healthy reserves, we’ve just been celebrating the incredible commercial returns of this World Cup. What did a future forecast look like for the valuation? Is this actually a fire sale?”

He continues: “It’d be fascinating to jump into the J.P. Morgan evaluation and understand how the value was determined. Not knowing the methodology, that’s potentially incredibly cheap. What are those assets worth potentially in 2034? Those are things the members needed to know.”

Infantino hoped that the 211 members would be tempted by proposed payments of $40million each over the next four years. Yet it rebounded amid suggestions — denied by FIFA — that he may have been in line for a lucrative commissioner-style role at the spin-off enterprise.

Pragnell says: “The concept of putting money downstream, to go into football development, is a good one. That is if there are sufficient checks and balances on how money is managed. But it should not necessarily be through private equity. That’s a debate the game should be having. That’s why we have, in my mind, the FIFA Bureau, the FIFA Council and the FIFA Congress, to discuss these things.”

Instead, the initiative was cooked up without consultation. Many member federations were opposed, but to some, it was the moment that encapsulated a pattern of leadership by Infantino, where outcomes are decided by an increasingly concentrated power base with a highly elastic interpretation of FIFA’s statutes.

Over the past year alone, Infantino single-handedly decided Trump should receive a FIFA Peace Prize, while the game’s integrity was called into question after Trump revealed he called Infantino to challenge a red card received by U.S. forward Folarin Balogun during the World Cup. A disciplinary committee, which FIFA says is independent, decided unusually to suspend Balogun’s one-game ban in the middle of the tournament.

Pragnell, it should be said, has not been a long-time public critic of Infantino. When I last interviewed him at FIFA Congress in Paraguay in May 2025, he praised Infantino’s desire to grow the game globally and redistribute wealth to developing football nations.

“The commercial growth has been incredible,” Pragnell says now. “Some of the FIFA staff that I’ve met over the years are some of the best qualified young professionals taken from around the world. That’s a particular group I’m feeling for right now, as the organisation is taking a battering. That being said, from an organisational perspective, ultimately, the FFE scheme is what drove New Zealand Football to take the view that we couldn’t support his candidature for 2027.

“I will also make some personal observations. There’s some growing disquiet around the world around how World Cups are awarded.”

Pragnell, right, at an event in 2024 with New Zealand’s general manager of high performance Keir Hansen (Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Infantino has still never taken questions on the process that led the 2034 World Cup into Saudi Arabian hands. Due to FIFA’s confederation rotation principle, two tournaments must pass before a confederation can host another World Cup. In 2030, the tournament will be shared across three continents (Africa, Europe and South America) and six countries (Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay). This made the 2034 tournament essentially a fait accompli for Saudi Arabia, which belongs to the Asian confederation. The rotation principle means New Zealand could theoretically be contenders to host the 2038 men’s edition, as only Oceania and Concacaf would be in play for the tournament. Many suspect Infantino favours a return to North America.

“Is it going to be competitive or is it going to be managed in the background?” he asks. “And you know what? If the Congress agree that we should prioritise harmony over (bidding battles), then perhaps that’s OK, but let’s at least have that discussion on how it should be approached.”

Pragnell continues: “The things that have been happening are driving discontent amongst leagues, clubs, players and fans. If the powers-that-be, those of us who have some of the checks and balances, don’t take note of those and don’t speak out on them, then ultimately people will lose confidence in the global game. From an organisational perspective, absolutely the enterprise scheme went too far. But it presented the evidence or talked to fears that people have; that power is too concentrated, which is exactly what the 2016 FIFA reforms were designed to avoid.”

Pragnell also concedes that, following the World Cup, some associations and some fans are now questioning the independence of FIFA’s disciplinary committee. “Obviously all members have to have full confidence in the independence (of that committee). For the game, for fans, the idea or concept that perhaps there could have been interference is grossly concerning if this impacts the on-field performance. So, while I’m not making any allegations in relation to that, obviously it casts a shadow and certainly the public confidence has been shaken.”

As for what happens next, New Zealand want a full independent review into the FIFA Forward Enterprise scheme. FIFA has suggested it will make its own review and report to the FIFA Council, but Pragnell says the terms of reference must be agreed by all six confederations and focus on how and why the plan was developed and who was involved at every stage.

“We need a qualified global institution with investigative background and strong commercial knowledge to do this type of work. It must be a party that’s contracted and can be relied on, but the scope needs to be overseen by the parties who’ve lost the trust.”

Behind the scenes, are disgruntled federations now working together and reaching out to possible allies? “We’ve got relationships with many football associations around the world,” Pragnell says. “We’re in touch with a wide range, including some in the northern hemisphere. We’re not deeply kind of enshrined in a mass of ‘What’s next?’, there is a lot of water going to the bridge. I don’t think this is done.”

Within Oceania, there is no bloc unanimity, with nations deciding they will respect one another’s independence.

“I’m really interested for when the FIFA Council will next meet and the position their members will take,” Pragnell says. “I’m hoping that for the sake of fans, clubs, leagues and anyone involved in the delivery of the game that people are clear on their position. The biggest concern is the idea that people might be too scared to take a position because of some kind of retribution or something that might happen to them — we just cannot have that. We can never have that in football. There shouldn’t be (fear) and there can’t be, and ultimately if there was, there would need to be further outcry.

“People need to step forward. We took the position as a values-based decision, that’s what we stood for, we thought the public should know what we stand for. We hope that, by taking that stance, others will feel brave enough to come forward and state their position as well.”