2026年美加墨世界杯刚结束不久，昨日FIFA突然官宣成立子公司“国际足联前进企业”（FFE），初始股权估值200亿美元，将向外界出售世界杯股份，此提案一出立即引发了轩然大波。

二 | 因凡蒂诺的提案是什么？谁将从中受益？这对足球运动本身可能意味着什么？《每日电讯报》体育版带来详细解读——因凡蒂诺计划将世界杯的部分股份出售给私人投资者，外界将其称为投向足球界的“200亿核弹”，甚至“可能比欧超联赛糟糕得多”，还有因凡蒂诺与唐纳德·特朗普之间的“兄弟情谊”……因凡蒂诺的计划是什么？国际足联主席因凡蒂诺已确认，他希望创建一家新的子公司——国际足联“前进”企业（FFE），将该组织的商业和赛事运营（包括转播、赞助、票务和授权业务）整合在一起，其中涵盖世界杯和世俱杯。国际足联表示，将基于200亿美元（折合150亿英镑）的初始股权估值，向外部投资者出售FFE的少数股权。国际足联称，此举可筹集至多42亿美元（32亿英镑），用于资助一项新的“国际足联快进计划”（FFFP），作为将足球发展资金扩大至超过100亿美元（75亿英镑）计划的一部分。国际足联强调，将保留对FFE的独家控制权，并在足球治理、赛事、比赛日历以及所有监管和体育决策方面拥有专属权力。国际足联还强调，所有这些都须经其211个会员协会中的“多数”批准。    

    Liu Mengfei at Beijing's Homoludens Archive Photo: Courtesy of Liu Mengfei
Inside Beijing's Homoludens Archive, shelves are filled with books, game consoles, game cartridges and other materials tracing the history of video games. For Liu Mengfei, the archive's director and chair of the academic committee of the Gamification Professional Committee, these collections preserve more than the evolution of games, they also capture the cultural memories of a generation.
A PhD in history from Tsinghua University, Liu has spent more than a decade studying the social impact of games, the role of games in history and digital humanities. Throughout her career, she has continued to explore the relationship between games and people: Why do humans create games? And how do games shape culture and society?
Books, meanwhile, have been an important gateway through which Liu has come to understand the world of games.
"The real value of a book lies not simply in what it tells you, but in whether it can change the way you understand the world and people," Liu told the Global Times.
Books meet games

In 2007, being an undergraduate history student, Liu wrote her thesis on the links between ancient Celtic religion and modern digital games.
To study original sources such as The Gallic War by Roman author Julius Caesar, she taught herself Latin. As her research extended into modern games, she also began reading the rulebooks of Dungeons & Dragons, a tabletop role-playing game.
"From historical texts to game rulebooks, these reading experiences seemed to belong to completely different worlds, but they gradually led me to realize that games are not simply entertainment products. They also contain history, culture and the relationships between people and society," she said.
Later, Homo Ludens, by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, further transformed the way she understood games. The book gives a theory that humans are not only Homo sapiens, or "rational beings," but also Homo ludens, or "playing beings," and that games are deeply intertwined with human culture, from language and art to religious rituals and sports.
The book had a profound influence on her. It points out that the foundations of human society — language, civilization, religious rituals, sports and art, are all connected to play and games, because we are Homo ludens, "the playing human."
"The idea prompted me to view games from a broader perspective," Liu said. "Games are not an appendage outside human civilization, but are deeply connected to cultural creation and social life." 
"It also showed me that games and game-based thinking could extend into broader fields, including education and technology," she added.
She later read other works on game studies, including Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture, Half-Real and Rules of Play Game Design Fundamentals. Play Between Worlds, in particular, opened up another possibility for game studies at a time when discussions about "internet addiction" were prevalent in China.
"Games are not simply a form of entertainment that needs to be restricted or criticize;. they can also serve as important media for storytelling, cultural expression and exploring relationships," she said.
These reading experiences gradually shifted Liu's focus from simply asking "What are games?" to a deeper question: What can games bring to people?
Beyond time and technology
Periodically, Liu still returns to Homo Ludens in her free time, finding new insights from the book as society changes. In the age of artificial intelligence, she has revisited one of its fundamental questions: As AI becomes increasingly capable of handling repetitive tasks and surpasses humans in efficiency, what does it mean to be human?
"As AI takes over more monotonous and repetitive work, the time freed up should be devoted to creativity, experience and human relationships," she said. "The time we gain should actually be used to become better at 'playing humans.'" 
For Liu, this also requires people to maintain their ability to think, imagine and reflect -- abilities that cannot be gained through simply receiving information. This has also prompted her to reconsider the meaning of reading.
In an era when AI can quickly summarize an entire book, Liu believes people still need to read the original works in full, because the value of reading lies in more than simply acquiring knowledge and conclusions.
"Reading a book is like a form of cultivation. You have to immerse yourself in it, patiently allow the author to take you on a journey, and find your own island along the way," she said.
For Liu, the value of reading is not limited to books on paper. As media evolve, so do the ways people encounter stories and understand culture. Some digital works are now becoming new vehicles for reading.
Chinese-developed games such as Genshin Impact contain hundreds of thousands, and even more than a million Chinese characters of text, while Black Myth: Wukong uses its "Journal" system to tell the stories of individual monsters through written entries. 
"Digital games are carrying forward traditions inherited from literature and film, becoming new gateways, through which young people can enter the worlds of literature, history and traditional culture," she said.
"An important reason why Black Myth: Wukong has succeeded in communicating Chinese culture is that it does not simply insert traditional cultural symbols into a game. Instead, it draws on the original Journey to the West, contemporary works inspired by the classic, as well as the game's own rules and interactions, allowing players to develop a new understanding of traditional culture through their actions," she noted.
For Liu, the forms of reading may change, but the desire to understand the world and discover oneself will not. From books to digital worlds, what matters is not only what people read or play, but how they think, create and find meaning through these experiences.
。谁将受益（各个足协成员、因凡蒂诺）？根据国际足联“前进”发展计划，各会员协会在2027至2030年期间的预算拨款为每协会800万美元。一旦FFE计划获批，各成员协会将立即获得一笔2000万美元（约1500万英镑）的“选择性”资金（目前尚不清楚他们会基于何种理由拒绝这笔资金）。此后在2027-2030年间再获2000万美元，2031至2034年间获2200万美元，2035至2038年间获2400万美元。对于依赖国际足联拨款的那些协会来说，因凡蒂诺此番大手笔将带来翻天覆地的变化。周二公布该计划时，特别提到了佛得角和库拉索，这两个国家/地区正是在“国际足联前进计划”长达十年的持续扶持下，才得以登上世界杯舞台。私募股权投资者自然也希望从中获利。尽管公告并没有提到，但因凡蒂诺此前曾传可能在子公司中担任权力极大的“专员”一职，时间点就在他2031年国际足联主席任期结束之后。届时，他每年有望赚取数千万英镑的收入。主要参与者有哪些？考虑到因凡蒂诺与特朗普之间的密切关系，此次计划中最受关注的焦点人物当属约书亚·库什纳——他的哥哥贾里德正是美国总统的女婿。

三 | 这位亿万富翁旗下的Thrive Eternal基金，已被国际足联列为FFE拟议投资者集团的“预期牵头方”。约书亚·库什纳与名模太太卡莉·克劳斯参与FFE筹建的还有Bann Ventures的首席执行官格雷格·马菲，他曾担任自由媒体公司总裁兼首席执行官，正是在其任内，自由媒体完成了对F1（一级方程式赛车）的收购并持续运营至今。此外，摩根大通和OpenEconomics也参与了潜在投资者的搜寻工作。国际足联表示，其目标是组建一个“地域分布多元化的投资者群体，以体现国际足联和足球运动的全球属性”。国际足联还透露，截至目前，来自世界各大地区的投资者均已表现出兴趣。我们之前是不是见过类似情况？因凡蒂诺此前就曾尝试推动与私人投资者达成数十亿美元级别的交易。早在2018年，他便提出了一项为期12年、总额高达250亿美元的方案，计划由日本软银集团秘密出资，用于打造全新的全球性赛事，其中就包括扩军后的男足世俱杯，而沙特阿拉伯的资金似乎也为其提供了支持。然而，这一提议最终在欧足联的强烈反对下夭折，因为欧足联认为其核心赛事资产——欧冠联赛和欧洲杯正面临威胁。这对足球运动意味着什么？FIFA在公告中对出售世界杯股份可能引发的深远影响轻描淡写。然而，私募股权介入后，很可能迫使相关方为新投资者追求利润最大化，即便这会损害足球运动的整体利益。首届48队世界杯刚刚落幕，国际足联已在酝酿下届扩军至64支球队。加纳主帅奎罗斯就批评今夏扩军的效果“粗俗又平庸”。

四 | 改制后的32队世俱杯，第二届赛事同样可能进一步扩容。同时，关于世界杯或世俱杯是否改为每两年举办一届的讨论也可能再度浮出水面。此外，补水暂停或将成为比赛常态，而世界杯票价除了最富裕的球迷外，绝大多数人仍将难以承受。球员权益组织屡屡对密集赛程表达担忧。球员工会Fifpro此前报告称，部分球员全年休息时间仅占12%，根源在于赛事组织方未将球员福利放在首位。当时效力于曼城的德布劳内就曾指出，对国际足联和欧足联而言，金钱远比球员福祉更重要。各方反应如何？因凡蒂诺称，这项计划旨在“推动全球足球民主化”，并承诺大力投资“那些最偏远、最常被忽视的足球角落”。然而，他立即遭到最富有的的欧足联的反对。欧足联指出，此举“越过了足球管理机构不应触碰的红线”，并呼吁所有关心足球未来的人正视这一威胁。欧足联强调，“足球的灵魂与管理权绝非可以买卖的商品，尤其在对获利方毫无透明度的前提下。

五 | 没有人是足球的主人，足球也不是国际足联可以随意出售的。”其他一些批评者则用“核弹”、“比欧超联赛更糟糕”来形容这一计划。挪威一直公开批评因凡蒂诺，正考虑就美国前锋巴洛贡禁赛解禁的决定，提出道德投诉。

六 | 英足总目前尚未发表评论，据悉，英足总曾支持因凡蒂诺留任国际足联主席。因凡蒂诺预计将在明年连任该职务。