Three Rooms in Zurich, Jeddah and Washington: The $20bn Valuation Fight and the Limits of FIFA's Power

Three rooms, one night

On October 15, in Zurich, a meeting room inside FIFA's headquarters had its lights on early. In Jeddah, time zones away, a phone posted a short Instagram video in an even voice, talking about a “culture of dialogue” and “trust.” In Washington, a letter had been sitting on a desk for days, signed by Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, calling FIFA's cooperation “woefully inadequate.”

Those three rooms are not talking to each other. They are only talking about one man: Gianni Infantino.

I sat in Busan reading all three in a single morning and recognised the scene. In 2026, also in Zurich, Swiss police walked into a hotel at dawn and world football woke up to criminal charges. Back then I wrote fast and loud, and I got the timing wrong. The man who lost his seat was not the first man led away. I have carried that lesson for ten years.

This time the story repeats at a different layer. No handcuffs. Only contracts, valuations and letters demanding documents.

A commercial vehicle, and a disputed number

In July, The Times reported that FIFA was exploring a plan for private investors to take a stake in a “commercial vehicle” — a separate entity that would run the World Cup and other FIFA competitions. The structure is standard corporate finance: strip the best-performing asset out of the parent, sell equity to outsiders, split the cash flow.

What made it hot was the number. UEFA, in filings in US federal courts, claims the vehicle was undervalued at $20 billion. That is an allegation inside a litigating party's legal document, not an audited valuation. No audit has been published. No third party has confirmed it. FIFA calls the whole thing a smear campaign.

I have been in this trade long enough to separate two kinds of numbers: the verifiable and the ones two sides are pulling toward themselves. FIFA's four-year cycle revenue is commonly cited in the $7–11bn range, depending on accounting and source — and I have never held a sufficiently detailed annual report to state it flatly. If an asset is priced at $20bn while its cash flow hangs on a tournament held once every four years, the multiple has to be extremely generous to land there. Or extremely cautious — which is precisely UEFA's point.

The valuation risk is not about selling at the wrong price. It is about selling a shared asset cheaply to a small group, when the highest bidder in history has always been the member associations.

Picture it the way fans understand it. A club sells 30% for 200 million when its market value is a billion. Supporters would call that a bargain for the buyer and a betrayal of the seller. At FIFA, the “seller” is the member associations — some of which cannot cover a women's training camp.

One structural detail deserves more attention than it gets. If this really is a special purpose vehicle holding World Cup operating rights, part of that value is migrating from a common asset into a private cash flow that can be resold, pledged or transferred. That is why the valuation is not a technical footnote. It is the entire story.

And that is why the refusal to disclose documents matters more than any specific allegation. Without documents, nobody can value the asset. Without a valuation, nobody can refute the claim. Without refutation, the argument never ends — it just changes speakers.

Why the legal attack travels through America

Why did UEFA file in US federal courts rather than pursue the Swiss route, where FIFA is domiciled and local law has the most direct jurisdiction?

I am not sure. This is my inference, and I mark it as such. Two possibilities. First, some documents or arrangements are US-linked — held, signed or archived by American entities. Second, US federal disclosure procedure carries more practical force, and more importantly it creates a public record journalists can work from.

But the cleverest part is the second step. The US filing is not the destination. It is a launchpad. The end point may be a criminal complaint in Switzerland, where FIFA is a registered association under Swiss law.

If undervaluation were established and translated into mismanagement or breach of fiduciary duty, the consequence stops being a media argument. It becomes personal legal exposure at leadership level. That is a two-tier design: tier one builds evidence, tier two builds risk.

If the allegation fails, Infantino's position strengthens and the “smear campaign” framing becomes a verified fact. The distance between those two outcomes is so wide that I cannot pick a side on the evidence available. When the spread is that wide, a writer should not shout.

The arithmetic of votes, and a fact rarely stated

European media are telling this as a war between transparency and power. That framing is morally right and arithmetically wrong.

Count. The Saudi Arabian federation has emerged as a key Infantino ally. Qatar has been cited as a supporter too. Under FIFA's confederation-based voting, a well-organised Arab–Asian–African bloc weighs more than a populous but fragmented Europe.

UEFA has said it will look for a credible candidate to challenge Infantino in next year's election. I read that sentence carefully. And I noticed the fact it hides: they do not have one.

If they had, they would name it. Strategists at a major federation do not keep their card hidden until the deadline to protect it. The candidacy deadline is November 18. The FIFA Council meets in Zurich on October 15. That is one month between the two. A federation that has not named a candidate will not conjure an internationally credible figure in a month.

This is where I have to credit Infantino's patience. He is seeking a fourth term. He controls the candidacy process, the Council, and relationships built over more than a decade. The pressure comes from Europe, but the votes come from everywhere. The binding constraint on this election is not dissatisfaction. It is the availability of a name.

I have seen this once before. In 2026 everyone believed the chair would be empty within weeks. It took four years. Dissatisfaction is a feeling. A seat is a procedure.

The woman at the same table

Debbie Hewitt chairs the English Football Association, is a FIFA vice president, and sits on the FIFA Council. She signed a letter demanding document disclosure and, per the reporting, intends to confront Infantino in person.

She deserves a paragraph, because European media treat her as a moral shield while I see the tightest corner in the whole story.

She is demanding documents from the man she sits beside, in a council where she is a member and vice president. Every step she takes can be read as an English move rather than a Council move. And if the election passes without an alternative candidate, she still has to work with Infantino for four more years. In sports politics, the person who speaks up late pays the highest price — she is standing up while nobody stands beside her.

For a British-born writer living in Korea and writing for Korean readers, that structure is painfully familiar. In any system, a person's real strength is not the seat they occupy but how many will stand when they stand. Hewitt sits very high. Around her, everyone is calculating.

When a national legislature enters football's meeting room

Democratic members of the US House Judiciary Committee called FIFA's cooperation “woefully inadequate.” FIFA replied that discussions have been productive.

This is the precedent I consider bigger than the valuation story, and the least analysed. A sovereign legislature is shining its light inside the governance of the most global sport on earth. Past FIFA investigations were driven by prosecutors — the US Department of Justice, Swiss police. A congressional probe is different in kind: it does not need a conviction. It needs a hearing.

And a hearing can happen again, in other years, each time with cameras.

I wonder whether FIFA is pricing this risk correctly. Judicial risk has an ending. Political risk does not. If football becomes a topic in the electoral cycles of large countries, any governing body pays in someone else's political rhythm.

I once wrote the words “Cancel the season” in March 2026 when football stopped. I believed it then, and I deleted it later — not because I stopped believing, but because I learned my emotions are not a measure of truth. People were still running themselves into the ground on empty pitches. That pulled me back to a principle: when I am not certain, say I am not certain.

Here, I am not certain a congressional probe produces anything concrete. I am certain it does not vanish. In governance, the things that do not vanish are the ones to fear.

Balogun, and the architecture of a pattern claim

Among the listed issues, one looks out of place: FIFA's handling of the Folarin Balogun case.

For the uninitiated, Balogun is a striker born in New York, developed in English football, who switched international eligibility. Cases like this are administrative: conditions, paperwork, timing, decision-making authority. No ball is kicked. Only process.

Why is it sitting next to a $20 billion story?

Because the parties are building a pattern-of-conduct file, not a single-event case. This is a familiar investigative technique: each incident alone can be explained away, but a chain pointing to one habit is far harder. A single allegation is a case. A chain of allegations across unrelated domains is a pattern — and a pattern wounds far more than any of its parts.

I do not have enough information to judge the Balogun matter. I say so plainly. But I understand the logic of whoever added it. If you want to prove an organisation is opaque about a $20bn valuation, you must show it is also opaque in smaller places. The smallest. A player eligibility file.

That is how big investigations are built. Not with one blow, but with a picture.

Where I might be wrong: Infantino is strengthening, not weakening

Now the part European football does not want to hear.

I think current pressure consolidates Infantino in the short term rather than weakening him. Three reasons, and then I will argue against myself.

First, convergence. The three fronts — legal, institutional, legislative — do not share a rhythm. US courts move on procedure. The FIFA Council moves on a calendar. Congress moves on American electoral cycles. Three speeds mean three discrete pressure events, each isolatable. In sync, this is a crisis. At three speeds, it is a series of irritations.

Second, the messenger. This crisis has no face of opposition. UEFA is an organisation, not a person. The FA is an organisation. A fight against a man requires a man. Football has voted against institutions before, and institutions won, because nobody votes for a board.

Third, the reform pledge itself. “Committed to doing what is right” can contain anything. An independent governance review sounds solid until you ask who reviews and what they can access. In my experience of large institutions, a review announced right after a legal strike serves two functions: finding the truth, or controlling the story before someone else does.

Now the counter-argument.

I may be wrong about speed. Swiss criminal exposure obeys no rhythm. If a complaint is filed and accepted, the political arithmetic flips within weeks, because member associations would then be defending a man who could be prosecuted, not a man being criticised. Those are different states entirely.

I may also be wrong about the candidate. I say UEFA has none, but I only read what is public. A name could be prepared in silence, and to me that is the only variable that truly changes the outcome. Documents may or may not be released. A credible candidate either exists or does not, and existence is binary.

I may also be falling into the trap of the 56-year-old writer: seeing cycles everywhere and assuming history repeats because I saw it repeat once. I once thought I cried for football's immortality in a Busan café when Korea beat Germany, and I wrote that football could die. It did not die. It changed shape. Perhaps FIFA will too.

An institution's fate is not decided in its own meetings, but in the rhythm of those who oppose it.

What I will watch, and what I will risk predicting

I do not write to be agreed with. I write to wake a sleeping question: if an asset owned by everyone is valued behind a closed door, then whether the valuation is right stops being an accounting issue. It becomes a question of who gets to set the price of what belongs to the many.

I predict no legal conclusion before November 18. I predict the private investment plan freezes regardless of the investigation's outcome, because no investor writes a cheque into an asset whose valuation is in court. And I predict that if no credible name emerges before the deadline, Infantino runs for a fourth term.

The number I will count is not $20 billion. It is the number of federations willing to sign a nomination. In this sport, votes are the only figure that cannot be smeared.

I write against the wind, but my heart is never against football. Even when football is being sold, piece by piece, in a room with no windows.