FIFA plans $3.4bn funding increase from reserves for football development

FIFA is preparing to propose an additional $3.4bn for global football development, drawing on its reserves, BBC Sport reported on October 14. The proposal is due before the governing body’s council on Thursday and concerns the 2027-2030 funding cycle. FIFA attributes the availability of extra money to the commercial performance of this summer’s World Cup.

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The reported package includes $25m for each member association and $99m for each of the six confederations. Funding would be divided equally between women’s and youth development, infrastructure, and projects. Infrastructure would have to provide equal access for women’s and youth football.

The payments are not yet approved. Eligibility, applications, disbursement and audit arrangements are due to be finalised by the council in December. The plan would then require approval at FIFA’s congress in March 2027. Those stages remain ahead of the proposed distribution to football’s national and regional bodies.

The initiative follows a dispute over how FIFA should finance development. In September, BBC Sport reported that UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and Concacaf president Victor Montagliani had jointly urged FIFA to release at least $10m per member association from reserves, in addition to regular funding. Their letter put the cost across all 211 associations at $2.11bn.

The two confederations challenged the need for FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal. That plan would have placed competition commercial and ticketing rights, including those for World Cups, into a new company, with a 21% stake sold to an investment company. BBC Sport reported that the proposal was dropped after four days following opposition from national associations.

In the September letter, seen by the BBC, Ceferin and Montagliani argued that FIFA was heading towards approximately $6bn in reserves at the end of the 2023-2026 cycle. They requested an independent examination of the finances and suggested a larger distribution could be considered once the year-end position was established. Their demand centred on funding infrastructure and development without requiring associations to support the private-investment proposal.