What’s behind growing European threats to boycott the next FIFA World Cup?

Members of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) are threatening to boycott FIFA World Cup tournaments following a virtual emergency meeting among the soccer body’s 55 member nations. A boycott would see top European contenders such as France, England, Portugal and Spain, the sporting event’s recently crowned world champions, out of future men’s or women’s FIFA World Cup tournaments. The next scheduled FIFA tournament is the women’s under-20 World Cup hosted by Poland, starting on Sept. 5.Just over two weeks after the 2026 World Cup tournament wrapped up, which resulted in a record income of about $12 billion, what led to this breakdown? What triggered the threat? FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced a plan to create a $20-billion company with private investors on Tuesday, which would form a commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE). Story continues below advertisement The FFE would run competitions, including the World Cup, and would “invite third parties to make minority, non-controlling investments” into the company.FIFA said in a statement the FFE would raise up to $4.2 billion later this year to help fund development programs “based on an ini...