England must BOYCOTT the Women's World Cup to stop Infantino selling football's soul

Just when you thought Gianni Infantino had finally exhausted the depths of administrative sleaze, FIFA's supreme leader has managed to discover a brand new basement underneath the trapdoor.

For a decade now, the world's most preening, Teflon-coated football bureaucrat has glided through global corridors of power like a smoothly oiled Bond villain - a man whose moral compass spins so wildly it could unclog a backed-up sewer pipe... and it's little wonder, given nobody on earth is quite so proficient at unleashing fresh torrents of corporate cr*p upon the world.

We've watched him turn world football into a travelling circus of shameless sycophancy and endless cash-grabs. But his latest stunt isn't just another piece of administrative vandalism. It's an outright heist on the very soul of the game.

Infantino's latest brainwave is as brazen as it is grotesque: he wants to carve off FIFA's commercial rights - broadcasting, ticketing, licensing, the lot - and sell a 20 per cent stake in a new entity, FIFA Forward Enterprise, to private equity investors for $4.2billion (£3.16bn).

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And who, pray tell, is leading this financial feeding frenzy? An investment group fronted by Joshua Kushner - brother of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law. You genuinely couldn't write a script this eye-rollingly absurd.

This, lest we forget, comes right on the heels of the 2026 World Cup, where Infantino spent two months performing a series of breathtaking contortions to stay in President Trump's good books. We saw the ultimate humiliation when Trump personally phoned Infantino to complain about a red card shown to USA striker Folarin Balogun; lo and behold, FIFA's "independent" judicial committee magically suspended the ban.

Now, having allowed Trump to rewrite the rulebook on the fly, Infantino is handing the keys to the commercial treasury over to the President's extended family network. And to ensure nobody asks too many awkward questions, Infantino is dangling a £30million cash bribe in front of every national association, telling them to sign off on the sell-off by September 19 or risk losing their grassroots funding. It's classic mob-style governance: accept the envelope of cash, keep your mouth shut, and let the suit-and-tie vultures pick the bones clean.

So, how has our very own Football Association responded to this existential assault on the game? On cue, Wembley's blazer-clad technocrats duly gathered in a softly lit boardroom, wrung their hands, and issued a statement expressing "deep concern." It's the administrative equivalent of throwing a soggy tissue at a roaring fire. Next up, perhaps they'll design a nice, polite lapel badge or a colourful warm-up top to really show how much they disapprove.

We've seen this limp, hand-wringing film before. In Qatar, it was a brief, panicked flutter over rainbow armbands that vanished the second a yellow card was mentioned. In North America, it was polite, muted murmurs while Infantino effectively turned the World Cup draw into a political rally. The FA's idea of taking a stand usually has all the backbone of a jellyfish. They make polite noises in Zurich committee rooms, take their allocated seats in the VIP boxes, and watch quietly as Infantino counts his billfolds.

Enough. No more virtue-signalling. No more sternly worded press releases that Infantino uses to line his shredder. If Mark Bullingham and the FA genuinely care about protecting football from being auctioned off to private equity speculators and political cronies, they must reach for the nuclear button: England must threaten an immediate, total boycott of the 2027 Women's World Cup.

And they shouldn't do it alone. They must immediately form an impenetrable European front alongside UEFA allies - Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands - and deliver a blunt, non-negotiable ultimatum. Either Infantino withdraws the FIFA Forward Enterprise scheme permanently and bans private equity from owning commercial stakes in international tournaments, or he can watch the 2027 tournament implode without a single European team stepping onto the pitch.

Without the Lionesses, without defending champions Spain, and without the rest of Europe's elite, Infantino's shiny $20bn pitch to Wall Street collapses overnight. Private equity sharks do not invest billions in empty stadiums, depleted TV ratings, and second-rate substitute teams. Cut off the star power, and the money-men will scatter back into the shadows faster than you can say "conflict of interest."

We know this strategy works because we've seen the terrifying magic of righteous football fury before. Cast your mind back to the European Super League heist in 2021: a cartel of greedy billionaires attempting to ring-fence the sport, only to be completely obliterated within 48 hours by a tidal wave of fan power.

When supporters took to the streets, blocked team buses, and made the ground shake beneath the owners' feet, those ruthless corporate conquerors folded like cheap deckchairs. If the FA's suits lack the spine to lead the charge against Infantino's privatised empire, then the fans must force their hand and light the touch paper once more.

For too long, football's spineless custodians have treated Gianni Infantino like bad weather - an unpleasant, unavoidable tax on existence to be endured under a squeaking umbrella while he quietly auctions off the family silver.

Well, the World Cup is not a sovereign kingdom, Infantino is not its feudal lord, and the global game does not belong to Wall Street suit-wearers or Florida golf club courtiers. It belongs to the terraces, the muddy park pitches, and the millions around the world who pour their lives into it.

The line in the sand is drawn, the fuse is lit, and the time for polite diplomatic bowing is over. The FA must finally grow a spine, grab the sledgehammer, and smash this corrupt racket to splinters before there is nothing left to save.