ESPN discussed controversial Gianni Infantino plan

The scheming of Gianni Infantino to bring private equity into world soccer has brought chaos to FIFA. But his plans go beyond selling a stake in the World Cup and reportedly involve a children’s competition inspired by the Little League World Series with a potential partner in ESPN.

ESPN has televised the Little League World Series for years as arguably the premier sporting event featuring youth athletes (sorry, Patriot Games). And that reportedly served as inspiration for Infantino to christen a new U-15 World Cup that would feature all 211 FIFA nations. FIFA already has U-17 and U-20 World Cups as youth tournaments that are regularly held.

According to a report from The Athletic last week, FIFA went as far as having conversations with ESPN about not just broadcasting the event, but hosting it as well at their Wide World of Sports complex at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Opening and closing ceremonies could also take place at Disney theme parks. But perhaps the most outrageous proposal of all was Infantino’s idea that the opening game of the tournament be between Israel and Palestine. The man’s megalomania truly knows no bounds.

On Thursday, the Athletic issued a follow-up report that stated Gianni Infantino did not inform his own FIFA council about his ideas for the tournament, which like his polarizing plans for the World Cup, would be supported by private equity. Chelsea chairman and Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly was reportedly part of the funding discussions.

Ultimately, the Disney and ESPN plans for the event did not come to fruition. In June, FIFA announced the U-15 World Cup and Festival would be held in Baku this October.

Infantino’s status as FIFA President has come under serious fire ever since the plans for a private investment in the World Cup became public earlier this summer. Although FIFA decided to scrap the plans after the worldwide backlash, Infantino’s position as FIFA President is facing serious resistance amidst calls to step down. Now UEFA is pursuing a criminal proceeding against Infantino in Swiss court regarding the plot.

FIFA and Gianni Infantino are both incredibly toxic figures at the moment, but the ESPN discussions around the U-15 World Cup are notable because it shows a potential relationship between the two sides ahead of the men’s World Cup hitting the open market for television rights after the huge success of the 2026 tournament on Fox Sports.

It’s unclear whether ESPN might still be on board to broadcast the U-15 tournament in Baku, but it’s certainly a much less attractive business proposition for the network compared to hosting and broadcasting. ESPN could have put the U-15 World Cup front and center for an American and global audience in the same way they’ve done for the LLWS. That certainly won’t be the case now.

It would be fascinating to know why it didn’t ultimately go through, whether it was on FIFA’s end through their controversies blowing up, if ESPN experienced cold feet, or if it was related at all to the drama facing Boehly and the Dodgers ownership. We can only speculate what happened behind the scenes as for the end result of those conversations.

But from the ESPN perspective, it’s really all about the main prize of the World Cup. The quadrennial event stands as the most attractive sports rights property on the market. Even in spite of all the criticism surrounding Infantino and FIFA, any network will still crawl over broken glass to get the rights moving forward. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that these discussions could be ESPN’s way of planting the seeds to put them on FIFA’s radar to win those rights back after losing them to Fox in 2014.