FIFA President Gianni Infantino has scheduled a private call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday morning — not to discuss American interests, but to save his own job after his scheme to sell off the World Cup to Josh Kushner's private equity firm collapsed spectacularly last week.
Two sources confirmed to the New York Post that Infantino will speak with Rubio just after 9 a.m. ET. The official framing is that "soccer can be a form of soft power for America," as one insider briefed on the call put it. But that same source was blunt about the real agenda: "We all know that it is about job protection. It is not about anything else at this point."
Here is what actually happened. Infantino secretly arranged to spin off FIFA's broadcasting, sponsorship, licensing, and ticketing rights into a new subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise. Thrive Capital — run by Josh Kushner, the younger brother of President Trump's son-in-law Jared — would have taken a 20 percent stake for just over $4 billion. Soccer federations worldwide learned about it from media reports, not from FIFA. The near-universal uproar killed the deal on Friday.
Now an open revolt is underway at the Zurich-based nonprofit. One FIFA executive told the Post that officials are organizing under a movement nicknamed "Project Kill The Monster" to force Infantino out. FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour told the Associated Press he felt "deceived" by Infantino's secret talks. UEFA, the European governing body, voted unanimously on July 30 to boycott all FIFA-organized competitions — including the 2030 men's World Cup, raising the extraordinary prospect of host nations skipping their own tournament.
So a Swiss-Italian sports bureaucrat, isolated and besieged, is turning to Washington. The Post reports Infantino has repeatedly tried and failed to reach Trump by phone since the deal collapsed. A second source said he "is looking for allies of note to publicly support him."
The question ordinary Americans should ask: Why is any U.S. official entertaining this call? The 2026 World Cup will be hosted in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. That gives the federal government a legitimate role in security and logistics. It does not obligate the Secretary of State to prop up a foreign nonprofit executive whose own leadership is imploding — especially when the executive's failed deal would have funneled a piece of the world's biggest sporting event to the president's in-law.
The Kushner name is the thread that makes this a Washington story. Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital stood to gain a $4 billion stake in the World Cup's commercial future. The deal is dead, but the relationship that birthed it isn't. Infantino isn't calling Rubio because he cares about American soft power. He's calling because he needs a powerful friend, and he bet on the right family name.
Neither FIFA nor the State Department responded to the Post's request for comment.
Rubio hasn't said whether he'll take the call, offer a statement of support, or tell the Swiss suit to sort out his own mess. That answer will tell you whether the Trump administration serves American interests — or the interests of the people trying to monetize the game.
