FIFA president Gianni Infantino is under fire from the US House Judiciary Committee over his plan to sell a 20% stake in the World Cup to a private investment enterprise backed by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner and brother-in-law of Donald Trump.
Ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin told Politico that FIFA was “going directly into business with the Trump family”, referencing a fake peace prize Infantino awarded Trump in December and FIFA’s use of office space in Trump Tower. “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.”
Family ties and business interests
The Kushner family is deeply intertwined with Trump. Jared Kushner, married to Ivanka Trump, served as a Special Envoy for Peace in Trump’s first administration and helped negotiate the Islamabad Memorandum ceasefire with Iran. His younger brother Joshua, 41, leads Thrive Eternal, the lead investor in FIFA Forward Enterprise, the commercial spin-off Infantino is proposing.
Jared divested his shares in Thrive Capital in 2017 when joining the White House, but critics say the familial connections remain tight. Raskin has summoned Infantino to appear before the House Judiciary Committee and requested documents on gifts to Trump and visitor logs for FIFA’s Trump Tower office.
Controversial deals with Saudi Arabia
After Trump’s first term, Jared Kushner secured £2bn in funding from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for his own investment vehicle, Affinity Fund Management. The New York Times reported that PIF advisers raised concerns about the inexperience of Affinity’s management and that Saudi Arabia bore the bulk of the risk, but the PIF board, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, overruled them.
Coincidentally, Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup, and the PIF and Aramco are FIFA sponsors with deals worth around $100m a year. Prince Mohammed was implicated in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, with a US intelligence report concluding he approved an operation to capture or kill the dissident. The Saudi government rejected that finding.
Joshua Kushner has defended the PIF tie-up, challenging critics to “point to a single decision we made that wasn’t in the interest of America”.
Impact on FIFA and the World Cup
Critics argue that even a 20% minority stake could give effective control to the Kushner-backed fund if Infantino remains in charge without accountability. The plan has drawn wider condemnation from football fans and Uefa executives, compounding Infatino’s contentious tenure.
