"Had we known what this would devolve into, we would not have gotten involved." That's Joshua Kushner — brother of Jared, Donald Trump's son-in-law — quietly backing away from the wreckage of FIFA's most controversial commercial scheme in years.
Kushner's Thrive Eternal fund was the lead investor in what FIFA President Gianni Infantino branded "FIFA Forward Enterprise" — a plan to consolidate the governing body's commercial and event operations into a single entity and sell off roughly 20 percent to private investors. The price tag: $4.2 billion. The political fallout: arguably priceless.
What the FFE actually was — and why it collapsed so fast
The plan was buried before it had any real chance of breathing. UEFA, CONCACAF, and the AFC came out against it almost immediately. At least 22 national associations — Germany, Italy, and England among them — withdrew support for Infantino. Former players including Luis Figo, Robert Pires, and Juan Sebastián Verón publicly opposed it. The scheme went from leaked proposal to political catastrophe in a matter of weeks.
Kushner's statement, released via Axios, frames the FFE's intentions in the most charitable light possible: more capital distributed across all 211 FIFA member countries, investment in underdeveloped nations, grassroots development, fan experience. A genuine redistribution pitch. Whether that framing holds up under scrutiny is another matter — UEFA has requested from Thrive their full communications with FIFA officials, valuation models, financial projections, term sheets, and the identity of any co-investors. That's not a casual document request.
UEFA has been explicit that neither Thrive nor Kushner is an anticipated defendant in any legal action. But the fact that Europe's governing body is pursuing documentation at all signals this saga is far from settled.
Infantino's position is getting harder to defend
Infantino had been expected to run for a fourth term at the March 2027 election. That calculus now looks very different. His public apology hasn't stemmed the tide, and UEFA's language has been pointed: "FIFA's competitions are not for sale. Neither is the governance of our game."
The Swiss official built his political base on broad support from smaller federations — exactly the constituency the FFE was ostensibly designed to help. If that narrative gets unpicked during any legal proceedings, the foundation he's built over a decade gets significantly shakier.
Kushner says Thrive "failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football." That might be the most honest line anyone has uttered in this entire episode.
