FIFA ABANDONS PLAN TO SELL WORLD CUP, KEEPS QUIETLY RENTING IT OUT SINCE 1994
Gianni Infantino heroically retreats from a private equity deal for something already fully sponsored down to the corner flags.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced Tuesday he was scrapping a plan to sell private equity stakes in World Cup commercial rights, a decision widely praised by everyone who had forgotten FIFA has been informally private-equitized since roughly the invention of the fax machine. "We listened to the confederations," Infantino said, in a statement that printed out with three faint Qatar Airways logos the office printer physically refused to delete. "The World Cup belongs to the fans, the players, and eleven tiers of existing corporate partners whose names are stitched onto the actual turf."
"A promising first step," said UEFA spokesman Klaus Berrenhoff, in the flat tone of a man who has already had the no-confidence vote laminated, "assuming the next step is not another step." Berrenhoff clarified that UEFA's objection was never to commercialization itself, only to commercialization happening without UEFA getting its cut first, a distinction he described as "the entire sport, honestly."
Ron Rugundy closed the segment with characteristic restraint. "A courageous retreat from a battle he was never going to win, which, gentlemen, is essentially Infantino's whole management philosophy," Ron said, adjusting a mustache that itself carries light sponsorship from a regional airline. "I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I don't know how. What I do know is the only thing more commercialized than the World Cup is the outrage about commercializing it — and both are proudly brought to you by Qatar."
