After announcing plans earlier this week for FIFA to sell off a stake in the World Cup to private investors, the president of the global soccer governing body, Gianni Infantino, has announced he’s pulling those plans.
… %!s()
“The FIFA Forward Enterprise project was intended to provide a basis for further strengthening our FIFA Member Associations and our sport worldwide, especially in those countries where support is most needed. And more so, as we said from the outset, to do this only if a majority of the FIFA Member Associations were in support and always subject to a consultation process with them, the FIFA Council, the Confederations and wider stakeholders,” Infantino said in a statement on Friday.
“Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place,” he continued. “Our purpose has always been — and will always be — to unite and improve. As a result, this proposal will not proceed.”
The proposed plan would have consisted of FIFA setting up a new entity, FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), that would bundle soccer associated money-making operations while a significant stake would be sold to private investors. 20 percent of the company would have been sold to Thrive Capital, an invest group run by Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Backlash was immediate, with European soccer body UEFA saying on Thursday that if the plan went through, it would boycott FIFA events, including the World Cup. Three of the four semi-finalists of the 2026 men’s World Cup hailed from Europe, including this year’s champion, Spain.
Earlier this week, U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham released a statement online that read, “football does not belong to investors. It belongs to the people who fill the stands and who stand on the touchline week in, week out, rain or shine. The World Cup is not a product. It is the greatest competition in world sport, and it was never anyone’s to sell. Dress the deal up however you like. Once you have sold a piece of it, you have sold out.”
Infantino’s statement continued, “Moving forward, my intent is to bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks in the spirit of shared interest in our game, and with the objective to continue growing football everywhere, particularly in those countries that mostly need our support.” %!s()
Gianni Infantino looked every bit the “King of Football”, as US President Donald Trump likes to call him, when the two allies sat together watching the World Cup final less than two weeks ago.
… %!s()
Sure, there were some boos inside MetLife Stadium near New York when the two men walked across the turf to present the trophy and medals to Spain and Argentina players on July 19.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 items
list 1 of 4Infantino’s senior adviser resigns over ‘bad’ FIFA World Cup plan
list 2 of 4FIFA defiant over World Cup investment plan: ‘nobody is selling football’
list 3 of 4UEFA members vote to boycott FIFA if Infantino’s World Cup plans pursued
list 4 of 4FIFA belongs to ‘no individual or institution’, blasts former boss Blatter
end of list
Still, that 104th and final game capped the biggest-ever tournament seen as a vindication for the FIFA president – a consensus success on the field and a financial bonanza for global football. Infantino could look ahead to his likely re-election coronation next March.
The sunny scene must now feel an age ago since Infantino caused a seismic rift in global football.
The intensifying fallout has threatened the 56-year-old Infantino’s job after he seemed untouchable until this week.
Did Infantino have any choice but to abandon FIFA World Cup investment plan?
Infantino’s misstep was inviting private investors, led by Joshua Kushner, to buy a stake in future profits from World Cups and all FIFA events. The ensuing backlash – which included pledges by European nations to boycott FIFA events and claims from senior staff that Infantino deceived everyone – led Infantino to announce Friday that he was abandoning the plan.
“Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place,” he said in a statement.
Infantino left New York City last week with letters pledging election support from about 200 of FIFA’s 211 national member federations who vote for their leader every four years.
Now, even after scrapping his divisive investment project, his support remains unclear at best.
What would the private investment plan have done to for FIFA?
Infantino’s proposal would have created a subsidiary – known as FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) – for the money-making parts of the not-for-profit football body’s work: running tournaments like the World Cup, selling broadcasting and sponsorship, tickets and hospitality.
Private equity and petrostate sovereign wealth money has been normalised in European club football, yet it still seems unthinkable to many observers in the context of the World Cup. Football’s ultimate prize is seen as being about glory, not money, and fans have long believed it belongs to them.
FIFA proposed raising $4.2bn from investors buying a stake of about 20 percent in FFE, based on an equity valuation of $20bn. The “anchor investor” would have been Thrive Eternal, launched by Joshua Kushner, whose brother Jared Kushner is a son-in-law of Trump.
FIFA’s 211 member federations – already effectively the owners of the governing body as a nonprofit association under Swiss law – were offered $20m each. The deadline to accept was September 19.
The members already are due $10m each from FIFA over the next four years, funded largely by its record $15bn revenue over 2023-26 tied to the World Cup that just ended.
FIFA says under FFE, that would have doubled to $20m each, then rise to $22m each through 2034, and $24m to 2038.
That’s a huge sum for tiny football federations in places like Andorra, Montserrat and Papua New Guinea. Deep-pocketed football powers like England, Spain or France have other priorities.
Who were the main opponents of Infantino’s plan for FIFA and World Cups?
Some FIFA vice presidents, some of its top executives, all the European football federations, the football bodies of Asia and North America, Britain’s prime minister, the global group of national leagues, a lot of fans worldwide.
Essentially, everyone.
Infantino was looking increasingly friendless on Friday. His senior adviser, former Goldman Sachs banker Carlos Cordeiro, resigned and called it a bad deal. FIFA chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, gave a stinging statement to The Associated Press news agency in defence of colleagues that all but invited his boss to fire him.
A key move Thursday was European football body UEFA pledging to boycott all FIFA competitions until Infantino dropped the plan.
Europe’s teams routinely dominate and win FIFA trophies like the men’s World Cup and Club World Cup, which are its biggest revenue earners.
They collectively feared that private investors would seek – and demand – value from more games and bigger competitions that threaten the balance of global football.
That could jeopardise attention and revenues for club football, including the UEFA Champions League.
Fixture calendars are already congested, elite players are at their limits, broadcast and sponsor money is not unlimited.
All are angry that Infantino seems not to have consulted anyone while planning the project over the last year, when he was so focused on spending time in Trump’s orbit. Even Trump said Friday he had not spoken with the FIFA chief on his plan to sell stakes in the tournament.
US President Donald J Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino applaud to welcome the players during the presentation ceremony after the 2026 World Cup final [Frank Franklin II/AP Photo]
Did Infantino have any support for his plans for FIFA and World Cups?
Infantino’s traditional support base in Africa, which has 54 of the 211 voting members, had been neutral about the offers of game-changing money for many of them.
The 10-nation South American group CONMEBOL said on Friday it had received the proposal and would evaluate the issue “with the rigour it demands”. CONMEBOL is led by FIFA’s vice president, Alejandro Dominguez of Paraguay, who is relying on Infantino expanding the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams.
That would give more games to minority cohosts Argentina, Paraguay and inaugural 1930 World Cup host Uruguay, who currently are set to get just one game each of the 104. The rest are in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
What happens now for Infantino in his role as FIFA president?
The UEFA-led resistance succeeded in stopping the sell-off plan. Will that satisfy Infantino’s opponents to allow him to remain in office?
Does Infantino have the credibility to stay in office after interventions Friday by Lamour and Cordeiro that surely would make most presidencies untenable?
November 18 is the deadline for candidates to enter the next presidential contest, exactly four months ahead of the March 19 vote in Rabat, Morocco, where FIFA has its African headquarters.
Infantino was re-elected unopposed in 2019 in Paris and 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda. FIFA statutes allow him one more four-year term in office.
The FFE spinoff seemed a way to create a commissioner-like role for Infantino beyond 2031, likely paying much more than his current annual salary and bonus deal of more than $6m.
It would take 106 votes to ensure a majority in a contested election. Continents surely do not vote uniformly en bloc, but most of Europe’s 55, plus CONCACAF’s 35 and Asia’s 46 would be a solid base.
Speculation on a likely direct challenger typically lands on Paris Saint-Germain’s Qatari president Nasser Al-Khelaifi and the Canadian FIFA vice president, Victor Montagliani.
Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, the AFC’s longtime president from Bahrain, narrowly lost the FIFA presidential election to Infantino in 2016, so may decide to run again.
All such talk seemed fanciful until this week, despite long-term unease with Infantino’s style and previous attempts to force through unpopular projects.
The talk has never seemed more likely to become action. %!s()
Taylor Sheridan is getting back out in front of the camera.
The creator of Lioness, as well as Landman, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King and Yellowstone and its spinoffs, has a surprise on-camera role in season three of the Paramount+ spy thriller, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
… %!s()
“He’s involved. I mean, he has a role, which is great. And the show’s better for it when he plays a role,” Thad Luckinbill told THR of Sheridan’s balancing acting with writing and producing his many television series. “He’s a great character, and he kills it. So, I love when he comes in and plays with us.”
THR also reached out to Paramount for comment.
While Luckinbill, who plays Kyle McManus, a field-active CIA paramilitary officer and old friend of station chief Joe (Zoe Saldaña), couldn’t say much more about what Sheridan’s role would entail, he did reveal they share scenes together. Sheridan previously appeared as CIA officer Cody Spears in a cameo during season two.
It isn’t unfamiliar territory for Sheridan. Before becoming one of television’s most prolific creators, he appeared in series including Sons of Anarchy and Veronica Mars, in addition to onscreen roles in Yellowstone and 1883.
Whether it’s in front of or behind the camera, Luckinbill said he still gives every part his full attention.
“He’s so real. Whether he’s an actor, writer, director or a producer, he’s still the same guy,” Luckinbill, who co-starred with Sheridan in 2018’s 12 Strong, said. “He’s gonna give you the same opinions, and he cares the same about the product. So it doesn’t really change. He is who he is and you get it. He’s full access.”
Matt Gerald, who plays Army Delta Force operator Cody J, teased that the stakes are “incredibly high, if not the highest yet.”
“It starts with a bang. It’s nonstop throughout the entirety of the season — and it ends with a bang.”
As for the behind-the-scenes training, Gerald explained, “We started with some weapons training with some of our top military class, some of the best coaching forces guys on the planet that we were lucky enough to train with. They put us through some close quarter combat stuff. So shooting a variety of weapons, training, movement stuff, a lot of explosions, breaching doors. We did it all.”
He added, “In a time where there’s a lot of war going on in the world, we’re asking our soldiers to risk life and limb, to be able to get an understanding of the things they do when they go to work every day, it’s highly rewarding.”
Per Paramount+, here’s the official season three logline: “Hidden networks, foreign operatives and personal betrayals collide. Joe (Saldaña) walks the line between duty and home as unseen forces circle her world. Patterns appear where they shouldn’t, names vanish and paths rearrange. Guided by Kaitlyn (Nicole Kidman) and Westfield (Michael Kelly), Joe confronts enemies operating in the shadows, leaving her to reckon with a war that now reaches into every part of her life.”
Lioness season three premieres Sunday on Paramount+. %!s()
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has reportedly suffered a significant leak that saw a high-quality bootleg spread across X/Twitter before Sony took it down.
It's yet another leak in X's lineup that arrived just as Tom Holland's latest go at the Wall-Crawler swung into cinemas, according to Variety. The site stated that user Fredrick Bryan posted the movie earlier today, leaving users to view the film and reveal its biggest surprises for hours before Sony was able to take it down.
… %!s()
It's reported the post reached 5.9 million X accounts, accumulated more than 143,000 likes, and passed 10,000 reshares. IGN hasn't been able to find any reuploads of the movie on social media yet, but traces can still be found if you know where to look.
"DUDE NO I WAS WATCHING THIS SPIDERMAN BRAND NEW DAY MOVIE ON TWITTER AND IT SUDDENLY STOPPED PLAYING," one user said.
"Yo did anybody download that Spider-Man Brand New Day movie that just dropped? I forgot to download it before it got deleted," another user said with "loudly crying face" emojis.
Short segments revealing some of Spider-Man: Brand New Day's biggest reveals also started floating around on X. While some of those posts remain online, a message saying "this media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner" can now be found in the video's place. Some users still have posts available stating they saw at least the first chunk of the movie before it was removed, while others say they were able to nearly finish it.
As the leak made its way online and was promptly removed, Marvel Studios has unfortunately followed in the footsteps of Christopher Nolan and his new movie, The Odyssey. A high-quality rip featuring all three hours of that film was posted on X last weekend, giving millions of users the opportunity to watch it or at least get a taste of what it's like instead of going to the theaters to watch it. While Sony told Variety it had no comment regarding its leak, Universal did share its own statement.
"We became aware of the unauthorized posting of the film and immediately initiated takedown protocols," Universal told Variety in a statement. "We take copyright infringement seriously and will pursue all appropriate remedies to protect our content and intellectual property rights."
It's unclear if Sony has any plans to take further action regarding the Spider-Man: Brand New Day leaks on X. For now, the film has only just been released in theaters today, July 31, 2026.
IGN gave Holland's latest swing a 7/10 review. The film brought in an incredible $72 million in box office previews, though how exactly it will fare throughout its opening weekend remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Sony has already been doing its best to combat leaks related to its post-credits scene.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).%!s()
Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.
…
As a child of the '90s-era pocket monster craze, I had what I suspect historians will call Monster-Taming Madness. A not-so-terrible, but sort of annoying affliction that meant I always had a Tamagotchi in my pocket, a handful of Pokémon cards, and the entire Spice Girls discography on standby for summoning creatures from discs in Monster Rancher.
Need to Know
What it is: Pokémon: Survival Evolved, a few of them open carry Release date: July 10, 2026 Developer: Pocketpair Publisher: Pocketpair Reviewed on RTX 4080, AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 64GB RAM Steam Deck: Verified Link:Steam
To say I was obsessed is putting it mildly, but in all that time I spent collecting little guys and preparing them to duke it out, I never once considered the obvious: What if I gave one of these guys a gun?
When it launched in early access, that's what Palworld was known as: Pokémon with guns. It's not an entirely unfair description of the survival crafting, creature-collecting adventure, and two years ago, I would've agreed with it. It certainly looks like a case of copying someone's homework, though that's not a good distillation of the Palworld 1.0 we have today.
Palworld has come a long way since early access, with the bones of a satisfying, iterative creature collector all here. I just wish I jived with more of the survival bits, and that Palworld embraced the things that make it stand apart from Pokémon outside of hokey ultra-violence satire.
It's not what it looks like, I swear. (Image credit: Pocketpair)
The Pokémon in the room
Let's go ahead and get it out of the way—yes, Palworld's trainers, pal spheres, and even some monster designs are all similar to Pokémon. And yes, that's part of the appeal. It's also one of the least interesting influences when you start digging into the meat of Palworld's systems.
Comparisons to Ark or Conan Exiles feel more apt with its minion-like system for catching pals and deploying them to do base-keeping chores back home. In Ark, dinosaurs toddle about your base completing grindy survival crafting tasks, while thralls in Conan Exiles serve a similar purpose.
Palworld's pals work like the dinosaurs and thralls, but the execution is leagues better. Organizing your workforce is immediately satisfying in a way the others aren't, because you don't have to fight with it. I catch a pal, check its skills, and drop it at a crafting station to get started. There's no overly obtuse taming mechanic, and no need to engage with messy stat calculus. Even when I didn't have a clear grasp of all the nuances, my army of cute critters got their chores done without much fuss.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Image 1 of 11
New pals in the 1.0 update: Puffolt
(Image credit: Pocketpair)
Not every pal is willing to do every type of job, and I love how Palworld conveys their preferences through 'work suitability' levels—a clearly delineated set of specialty task icons highlighting a pal's capabilities. I was never left wondering why my new favorite early game pal, Pupperai, wasn't best in show for helping out around the base. It could only chop trees, pick berries, and move materials. Pupperai looks unemployable when the wild Tanzee nearby has those same skills, plus expertise in two additional task types.
My problem in Ark was always feeling so exhausted by the taming process that I would eventually just say 'fine, I'll do it myself,' before abandoning the idea. Pals will always try and help, at least a little, and the option for min-maxing is there through work suitability levels, partner skills, and passives.
(Image credit: Pocketpair)
Aesthetically displeasing
While I dig some of the new pal designs and scenery, Palworld's look and presentation occasionally sour me on the whole thing. There's just no way around how off-putting I find some of the game's tone and direction, which only grows worse as Palworld signals it's not very confident in its own artistic decisions. I get it, you aren't like the other games, you're different—the edgy older brother with a crude sense of humor.
I'm not just talking about Lovander giving me the bedroom eyes, either. Palworld has several little moments with weird tonal dissonance that feel inserted for virality or a need to prove it's different.
The first time I felt that way was right after crafting the Meat Cleaver, an early game tool you can use for butchering adorable critters like Lamball or Cattiva. So, being the monster that I am and unwilling to sacrifice Pupperai, I surveyed the starting area, judged all of its pals by their cuteness, and chose the one I liked the least as my first test subject. Sorry, Chikipi.
Violently butchering my pals didn't have much purpose, or at least not in the early game. In the time it took me to fetch a Chikipi from my Palbox and hack it apart, I could've already clobbered one in the wild without the weird blur effect making it into a goofy spectacle. There's no explicit gore to hide, it's just a bit for making the action cartoonishly violent. It was only in the very late game, when I unlocked the cleaver's automated mass-killing counterpart, that I saw any potential use for butchering pals at all.
Most of Palworld doesn't strain this hard to be shocking, but there's an air of the attitude sprinkled throughout. You'll find pals crying in cages, warnings that some little 'buddies' are working in various states of injury, and a handful of little guys wielding guns. Honestly, I'm glad there aren't more gun-wielding pals. That's more your avatar's thing. Tanzee, along with maybe four or five other pals are the only ones I can recall that stay strapped. You mostly just craft saddles to ride them like horses… or put them on the death machine.
I'm getting kicked out of the Palpagos HOA. (Image credit: Pocketpair)
Home groan
Legend has it that if you look into a mirror and whisper "survival crafting" three times, I'll come leaping out to ask what we're playing and when. I love'em, especially if they come with a good set of blocks because my friends always appoint me to the position of base architect, and I'm not stopping there. Our survival crafting house is getting the full service, appropriate holiday decor and all.
If you're also that person, bad news: Palworld makes for a pretty boring set of Legos.
If you're not that person, well, it's nice that the building is so bare-bones simple you can slap some crap on the ground and move on. But if I'm going to spend 100+ hours surviving and crafting, you're damn right I'm getting irritatingly picky about how my space looks.
Palworld's kit isn't all bad, but the underwhelming architecture and a few 1.0 tools are still worth mentioning:
The building grid is massive and painfully strict. You have to stack three walls to accommodate bigger pals if you don't want to see them clipping through.
Its building pieces, like walls and foundations, are of course oversized as a result. Palworld's map already suffers from a lot of empty space, and it's tough to let that go when my base looks the same way thanks to so much dead space.
I love the new paint tool that changes the color of some building pieces. Light shades of wood are almost always a sin in my book, so I used it to customize wooden building pieces and turn them into darker grains.
Paint works on storage furnishings too, and I love displays of color-coded chests. However, you can't paint some of the more basic furnishings like simple tables or chairs, though those futuristic production facilities need it the most.
The alignment tool for snapping walls or furnishings neatly beside each other rules. We should make this mandatory in every base builder.
(Image credit: Pocketpair)
Creature crafter
Micromanaging pal work suitabilities was easily the best part of my Palworld base design experience, and getting into the nitty-gritty of breeding for other stats was a similar treat. It's another thing you don't have to fully engage with—I didn't even touch the system until approaching the final boss—but it's a delight for anyone also into Pokémon's stat-perfecting systems.
Pals have more situational builds, so I can spec them to help out with housekeeping, combat, or buffing duties. Do you want a Sekhmet for combat or crafting? Will Chillet keep your base cool, be your primary mount, or both? Their passives—a random selection of traits affecting everything from work speed to attack damage to their ability to work at night—are randomly assigned to pals caught in the wild, and help you breed for traits suiting their role.
I've got absolutely zero chill when it comes to in-game travel, so I didn't even fuss over breeding a more powerful sidekick for the final fight. I just wanted the fastest ride available, and that's led me down an Eidrolon Ignis breeding frenzy. Don't worry, Palworld doesn't make it weird. There's just a lot that goes into the process, which includes tasks like:
Mass catching wild pals for the desired gender or passive. Sometimes you'll even stumble upon a Lucky pal, the game's version of shiny Pokémon.
Adding pals with breeding-specific buffs to the team managing your base.
Setting up facilities like the Breeding Farm and Egg Incubator; the Ranch for special food ingredients; or the Pal Condenser for merging weaker pals into your best one.
Breeding for particular stats, passives, an entirely different pal, or even the chance at Mutated Eggs with special features.
(Image credit: Pocketpair)
I haven't seen many cool Mutated Eggs yet, and my main battle team remains mostly made up of pals caught in the wild, not bred for specialities. For most of my 100+ hours through the main story, I only tinkered with the Surgery Table to give pals special passive implants. It looks a bit grim when set up, but fortunately lacks the theatrical brutality of butchering. I rolled my eyes at the presentation, then tinkered with implant combinations for hours.
That's emblematic of my Palworld experience. Lots of little moments where I grimaced at edgy reminders it's a big kid's game before getting lost in the freedom of its systems. It was nice to skirt by in tough battles without going all-in on designer pals, but when the time came, I could indulge in the side of me that loves involving a spreadsheet.
"Gotta catch'em all," also takes on a whole new meaning when I can actually catch them all in a single game with no fuss. Pokémon's historically miserable system of transferring, trading, buying the same game in a different color, and limited events evolved into one of my biggest peeves with the series. Palworld doesn't have the same massive monster roster, or at least not yet.
'Pokémon with a gun' works, but 'Ash with a gun' feels more appropriate. (Image credit: Pocketpair)
Knowing I could complete the Palpedia was a delight that often kept my character and her team overleveled from pal-catching XP. I sped through most story bosses using the default world settings, and felt like I was missing out on seeing what my pals could do while I was busy blowing the place up. It wasn't until the late game that I was humbled by a monstrous boss pal. Several deaths later led me to give aerial combat an honest try, and well, I should've done that from the beginning.
There's a push and pull between some of the things that matter most to me in survival crafting games, though I can't deny how good Palworld's creature collecting foundation is.
A showdown with Panthalus—Palworld's mythical big whale beastie—forced me to respect the mechanics. It was either that, or risk drowning again. So, I relied on my flying pal, Jetragon, for safety.
My new strategy worked, and shooting missiles from above was more fun than running around with a gun. Both are effective, but from the sky I'm at least using my pal, and I like the control I have over both my character and her pal as a unit. Palworld let me experiment more than I realized, and I like that.
There's a push and pull between some of the things that matter most to me in survival crafting games, though I can't deny how good Palworld's creature collecting foundation is. I love micromanaging pals at my base, fighting alongside them, and perfecting pedigrees through implants and eggs. I'm disappointed by the base building, lackluster open world, and mundane exploration.
It also lacks personality, unless being bludgeoned to death with a bat labeled "violence" counts as one. We can argue it's parody or satire, sure, but it's not very good at that, either.
With all of its success, I hope Palworld uses future updates to establish a more confident identity that relies less on being the most audacious person in the room. It's full of enough thoughtful systems and entertaining loops worth embracing—no need to dress it down in callow internet humor.
Evergreen Writer
Andrea has been covering games for nearly a decade, picking up bylines at IGN, USA Today, Fanbyte, and Destructoid before joining the PC Gamer team in 2025. She's got a soft spot for older RPGs and is willing to try just about anything with a lovey-dovey "I can fix them" romance element. Her weekly to-do always includes a bit of MMO time, endlessly achievement hunting and raiding in Final Fantasy 14. Outside of those staples, she's often got a few survival-crafting games on rotation and loves a good scare in co-op horror games.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. %!s()
