FIFA president Gianni Infantino is facing mounting calls to resign following backlash over a now-abandoned plan to sell a stake in the World Cup to private investors, despite the tournament having just delivered a record $15 billion in revenue. Football figures, national associations and even a world leader have publicly demanded he step down, and European governing body UEFA has maintained a boycott threat against FIFA tournaments even after the deal was scrapped.

The controversial proposal would have seen FIFA spin off its commercial arm into a new entity, FIFA Forward Enterprise, with Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital buying a 21% stake for $4.2 billion; FIFA abandoned the plan on 31 July after UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF all rejected it. Critics including Luis Figo, La Liga's Javier Tebas and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney have called for Infantino to go, while Norway's football federation president said trust in him is "gone". The pressure has intensified further after reports that a female former UEFA employee, alleged to have had a relationship with Infantino, received a six-figure "departure payment" — allegations FIFA has dismissed as "categorically untrue" and defamatory. UEFA's boycott stance faces its first test at FIFA's Under-20 Women's World Cup in Poland, starting 5 September.