Is football AI-proof? Why tech investors wanted a slice of the World Cup

Fifa's climbdown came fast. Threats of boycotts and open calls for president Gianni Infantino to resign forced the governing body to shelve its Forward Enterprise plan, a scheme that would have handed a minority stake in the World Cup to a group of investors led by Thrive Eternal, a spin-off of venture capital firm Thrive Capital.

Thrive Capital is run by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, and it's best known for backing OpenAI. But this April it launched Thrive Eternal specifically to chase assets with, in its own words, qualities that can't be replicated by technology. Football, with its tribal loyalties and generational identity, fit that thesis neatly. So did the San Francisco Giants, in which Thrive Eternal already holds a stake, and reportedly a new franchise the firm is eyeing in Las Vegas.

The numbers behind the Fifa deal were not small. Investors were reportedly prepared to put in $4.2bn upfront, against a $20bn valuation that would have handed each member association a stake worth as much as $91m. A source close to the firm insisted this wasn't a typical fund chasing quick returns, describing a horizon measured in decades rather than years, with equity staying under Fifa's control and the actual decision left to individual member associations. Talks reportedly began last year, with former Disney boss Bob Iger brought on as an adviser well before this year's men's World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico gave the wider public any sense of how commercial the tournament had become.

Professor Simon Chadwick, who has spent three decades around football's governing bodies and fan groups, put it bluntly: decisions about the sport are increasingly being made in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, often with fans barely noticing until it's already happened. Whether that's healthy is a separate question from whether it's happening, and Chadwick is clear it's happening regardless of what anyone thinks.

What makes the whole episode odd is that Fifa didn't look like it needed the cash. The organisation has called the World Cup under-monetised, yet hydration break sponsorships, dynamic ticket pricing and record broadcast deals already have the 2026 tournament on pace for record revenue, before you even factor in the expansion to 48 teams or talk of a future 64-team format. Christina Philippou of the University of Portsmouth made the point plainly: Fifa could raise payouts to member associations using money it already has, so there was no obvious need to bring in outside investors at all.

Thrive Eternal says it respects Fifa's decision to pull the plan. But nobody involved is pretending the interest in football has gone away, and the underlying bet, that sport's rootedness in tradition and shared identity makes it AI-resistant in a way film and music increasingly aren't, will keep bringing capital back to the table.