Fifa’s sale of the century: how Kushners and Trump are at centre of a tangled web
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It isn’t just football fans and Uefa executives who want to give Gianni Infantino the red card for his plan to sell off 20% of the World Cup to a privately backed commercial enterprise. The Fifa president is also in the crosshairs of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee in Washington and ranking Democrat member Jamie Raskin. The reason? Infantino’s plan, which is backed by Joshua Kushner’s investment fund, has, for some observers, president Trump’s sticky fingers all over it.
It isn’t just football fans and Uefa executives who want to give Gianni Infantino the red card for his plan to sell off 20% of the World Cup to a privately backed commercial enterprise.
Raskin told Politico that Fifa was “going directly into business with the Trump family”, before making reference to the peace prize Infantino awarded the president in December and Fifa’s use of office space in Trump Tower, New York. “Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough – now Infantino performs a kickback hat-trick by pursuing a multibillion-dollar deal with Jared Kushner’s brother to sell ownership stakes in the World Cup to private investors.”
As is often the case with Trump, the Kushner family is at the centre of any tangled web he weaves. Jared and Joshua’s father, Charles Kushner, convicted of tax evasion, witness tampering, illegal campaign contributions and sentenced to two years in prison, is Trump’s ambassador to France though he speaks no French. He was pardoned by Trump in 2020.
Jared, married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, is a Special Envoy for Peace and helped negotiate the Islamabad Memorandum ceasefire with Iran, which has now seemingly collapsed. He was also the man charged with fulfilling Trump’s pledge of bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to an end within 24 hours of him assuming the presidency.
But at the heart of this and once again keeping influence very much within the family is Jared’s younger brother, Joshua, 41, who has established various private investment funds including Thrive Eternal, who will be lead investor in Fifa Forward Enterprise, the commercial spin-off Infantino is proposing to sell shares in.
With Jared having divested his shares in Thrive Capital (the parent company of Thrive Eternal) in 2017 when taking on a role in Trump’s first administration, the familial ties seem especially tight around this project, as intimated by Raskin, who has already summoned Infantino to attend the House judiciary committee. He has also requested Fifa documents related to any gifts and benefits provided to Trump and details of the visitor logs for Fifa’s office space in Trump Tower.
Given Trump’s boasting that his direct line to Infantino persuaded Fifa to suspend the USA’s Folarin Balogun’s red card for the World Cup last-16 game against Belgium – the USA lost 4-1 – it is an unfortunate look for Infantino that the extended Trump family, through marriage, will be leading the sale of the century, the handing over of substantial control of the World Cup. Some critics say even a 20% minority stake will in effect be a controlling stake if Infantino remains in charge without accountability. Joshua, though, is only following in the footsteps of his older brother Jared in his incredible capacity for dealmaking.
Six months after the end of the first Trump presidency and after having being involved in US negotiations with Saudi Arabia during Trump’s first term, Jared managed to secure £2bn worth of funding for his own investment vehicle, Affinity Fund Management, from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom. The New York Times reported that PIF advisers raised objections about the deal reeling to “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management” and that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia seemed to bear “the bulk of the investment and risk” but the PIF board, chaired by the crown prince, overruled those warning to approve the money.
Coincidentally, Saudi Arabia will be hosting the 2034 World Cup in a bid driven by Prince Mohammed. The PIF, also owner of Newcastle United and Aramco, the oil company which is 81% owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is Fifa’s newest World Cup sponsor, with deals reportedly worth around $100m a year.
Kushner has always defended the tie-up with the PIF, challenging critics to “point to a single decision we made that wasn’t in the interest of America”. Prince Mohammed was implicated in the murder of US citizen Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, with the United Nations concluding that the state of Saudi Arabia was responsible while a US intelligence report, that was released by the former president Joe Biden, concluded that Prince Mohammed “approved an operation … to capture or kill” the Saudi dissident. The Saudi government rejected both reports, calling them “inaccurate”.
Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football
US-Saudi relationships have been much warmer in both Trump’s terms compared with the Biden interim and last week the US agreed a landmark deal to cooperate with Saudi Arabia to develop civilian nuclear power, while the two nations coordinated airstrikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq this week.
However, it is a different Kushner brother from an unrelated investment fund who is now the kingpin in driving the sale of the World Cup to investors.
It is, however, reported by Politico that Joshua will be approaching sovereign wealth funds “to build a globally diversified investment base”. Perhaps his brother Jared will be able to help with some contact numbers to get the ball rolling?
