FIFPRO Europe, the union representing European players, used a new study released on Monday to demand changes to how FIFA makes major decisions, arguing that the world body's now-scrapped investment proposal exposed serious weaknesses in football's governance.
The report focuses on FIFA's Forward Enterprise (FFE) initiative, an investment scheme unveiled by FIFA President Gianni Infantino earlier this year and later withdrawn after widespread pushback. FIFPRO Europe says the plan would have turned the sport's flagship competitions into assets for private capital without proper consultation with the people who actually run and play the game.
"FFE was an attempt to convert the game's core competitions into an investable, tradeable and undervalued financial asset for private capital," the report states. It was produced jointly with Player IQ and Football Benchmark.
Although FFE has been shelved, FIFPRO Europe argues the structural problems that allowed it to be proposed in the first place haven't gone away. The union is calling for an independent review of how the FIFA Council makes executive decisions, specifically so that major changes can't be pushed through by a single office acting alone.
A Wider Power Struggle
The study lands amid an ongoing tussle over influence in global football. In court filings tied to legal challenges from UEFA, FIFA has argued that resistance to its proposals is really about European interests protecting their dominant position in the sport.
FIFPRO Europe pushed back on that framing to some extent, saying it does support growing development funding for smaller federations. But it insists any solidarity mechanism needs buy-in from across the game rather than being imposed from the top.
"Any future proposal to grow solidarity funding should be built together, through trusted governance, not advanced unilaterally," the union said.
The Numbers Behind Europe's Leverage
The report leans heavily on data to make its case for Europe's outsized role in the sport. European clubs employed 856 players at the expanded 2026 World Cup and released players collectively worth around 16.9 billion euros (about $19.8 billion) — roughly 94% of the entire tournament's player value, according to the study.
It also notes that all 20 individual award winners across the last five World Cup tournaments have come from European clubs.
On the financial side, the report points out that the share of World Cup revenue paid out as prize money to participating countries has dropped to about 7.7% in 2026, down from 10.5% in 2006, even as overall tournament revenue has grown substantially.
"Players receive only a fraction of that return, while participating federations rely on it as FIFA's only performance-based revenue stream," the report said.
FIFPRO Europe is now pushing for players, clubs and leagues to be formally included in football's governance structures alongside national associations, rather than left on the outside of decisions that directly affect them. Reuters has contacted FIFA for comment on the findings.
