Has football given Europe a geopolitical victory?

HAS FOOTBALL GIVEN EUROPE A GEOPOLITICAL VICTORY?

When Gianni Infantino confirmed at the start of August that FIFA would abandon its plan to sell a stake in the commercial machinery of the World Cup, the reversal read as more than a governance climbdown. Writing in the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman argued that the episode handed Europe something it has rarely enjoyed during the second Trump administration, which is a clean geopolitical win. The reading is persuasive, though the victory is narrower than the celebration suggests.

The deal that united a continent

The proposal was ambitious. FIFA intended to spin its commercial businesses into a subsidiary valued at roughly $20 billion, and sell a 20 percent stake to private investors for as much as $4.2 billion, according to ESPN and NPR. The anchor investor was Thrive Capital, the New York firm run by Josh Kushner, brother of Jared and part of the extended Trump circle. That detail, more than the financial engineering, is what turned a boardroom dispute into a political one.

European federations moved with unusual speed. UEFA's 55 members agreed to boycott FIFA competitions while the plan stood, with the Asian and CONCACAF confederations adding their weight, as the Associated Press reported. Within days Infantino folded, citing the divisions the scheme had created. It had divided the wider football world, but it had united Europe.

A rare European win

Rachman's larger point is about power. The second Trump administration has been bruising for European governments, which accepted US tariffs with little retaliation and absorbed public humiliation over NATO burden-sharing. Football was different because it is one of the few domains where Europe genuinely dominates. Borrowing from the analyst Edward Fishman, Rachman notes that modern leverage runs through economic choke points, and that Europe's version of China's rare earths turned out to be its players, from Kylian Mbappe to Lamine Yamal. It also helped that Trump was not personally the target, which made the coalition easier to hold.

But how much does it matter?

Here the analysis earns its caution. Football, in Jurgen Klopp's much-quoted phrase, is the most important of the unimportant things, and a choke point over the World Cup buys less than one over semiconductors or energy. The cost to Infantino is still real, with senior figures including Arsene Wenger distancing themselves and Luis Figo calling for him to step down, per ESPN. His third term now looks far from secure. The satisfaction, as Rachman concludes, may prove fleeting unless Europe can exercise the same unity over things that matter more.