Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, has suggested allocating extra money to the organization’s 211 member associations after UEFA and CONCACAF urged a $2.1 billion payout from FIFA’s reserve funds.
In a letter addressed to the heads of FIFA’s six continental confederations, the plan will be brought before the FIFA Council on October 15. Infantino noted that any extra disbursement must undergo financial review and receive official endorsement.
“Until the assessment and necessary approvals are complete, no preliminary figure can be treated as an approved commitment to the Member Associations,” Infantino wrote.
The appeal follows demands by UEFA chief Aleksander Čeferin and CONCACAF leader Victor Montagliani that every one of FIFA’s 211 member associations obtain a minimum of $10 million in the 2027-30 period, supplementing current development aid.
In a correspondence dated September 18, the pair of confederation heads also urged an autonomous audit of FIFA’s reserve holdings. They challenged the necessity of the organization’s abandoned private-investment scheme, contending that resources could be boosted for members using current reserves. Their calculations suggested that FIFA’s reserves might climb to roughly $6 billion by late 2026, and that even after the suggested payout, more than $1.5 billion would remain in the reserves for the following cycle.
Infantino justified the logic of the scrapped commercial initiative, explaining that its purpose was to create extra capital for football investment without supplanting current development grants. “The recent commercial proposal, now withdrawn, was intended to enable FIFA to invest more in football, not to replace support that could responsibly be provided from existing resources,” he wrote. “So, it would actually have been on top of it.”
The FIFA Forward Enterprise scheme was dropped in July following resistance from multiple confederations such as UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation, which cited insufficient consultation. This clash has heightened demands for reforms to FIFA’s governance structure and its financial decision-making mechanisms.
Within this context, the plan shows growing examination of FIFA’s fiscal policies and the tension between building reserves and aiding members. Over half of African economies reported a decline in inflation in August, although oil prices above $100 pose a threat to those gains.
