Infantino defends FIFA World Cup sell off plans

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0:37Hello, I'm James Kamarasamy. Thank you for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast for Wednesday the 29th of July. The FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, has reacted to the criticism of his plans to sell off a stake in the World Cup, calling the millions he's offering countries who sign up for it as an offer and not an obligation. Half of England is now in drought, So what does it mean for farmers? We speak to the pilot of the first commercial test flight to last more than 24 hours. We hear new details about the open AI chatbot that went rogue. As Andy Burnham hints at tax rises to pay for social care reform in England.

1:13How might that work? And we remember Glenn Hansard, the Oscar-winning musician, who never forgot his busking roots. In top-tier football transfer terms, £30 million is no longer a particularly big number. but for some of the 211 federations that are members of world football's governing body FIFA, it could make quite a difference. We learned today that that is the amount the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, is offering individual countries if they back his controversial plan to sell off stakes in major competitions, including the World Cup, by the middle of September. The different associations would get a stake in a new consortium, which FIFA expects to be led by the brother of President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

1:57The plan, which has already been criticised by the FA here and by the Prime Minister, was also firmly rejected today by European football's governing body UEFA, which said FIFA cannot continue to use our sport to enrich themselves and their friends. Well, tonight FIFA released a video in which a defensive-sounding Mr Infantino tried to sell the idea and to offer reassurance. It is a golden opportunity to turbocharge the development of the game globally. But again, it is just an offer, not an obligation. And we are having the fiduciary duty to do so and we are here to discuss it with everyone. He also mentioned some of the smaller nations which had qualified for this year's expanded World Cup.

2:50and suggested his new proposal could replicate that success. The benefits of sustained investments, they are already visible. A decade of raising support through FIFA forward helped nations like Capo Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan reach the FIFA World Cup for the very first time. Fans from the corners of these four countries of the world and many, many other fans from everywhere in the world would gain immensurably from this game-changing potential. But again, it is simply a choice for our members. We can speak now to the New York Times journalist, Ken Bensinger, who has written books about FIFA.

3:39Welcome to the programme, Ken. Let's start with this statement from Gianni Infantino. What do you make of it? I mean, the idea that this is just a sort of a proposal that he's fiscally obligated to put out there seems a bit hard to swallow at this point. This is something that's clearly been orchestrated and designed in private in secrecy for quite some time and caught many people, including people on FIFA's highest committees by surprise. And it seems frankly like a business opportunity that is designed to extract a huge amount of financial value from the World Cup for a very small number of investors.

4:19And I don't understand or it hasn't been explained in any way that the public has seen how this would benefit the development of the sport of football. because traditionally the way that FIFA has worked as a non-profit is that the huge amount of money brought in by the World Cup and other tournaments like the Women's World Cup goes towards developing the sport distributed to the different member associations like the FA. But if instead it's now being set inside of a private corporation with investors, they're going to want their profits as well. So by definition, not as much money, if any, can flow down to the development of the sport.

4:54So I would say that the way it's been described is exactly the opposite of what it's being characterized as by Mr. Infantino. And as you say, many federations caught by surprise when this came out. Are any of them sounding positive about it? Oh, a few have. I want to be fact-checked on this, but I think Czechia, the Czech Republic, said that it would support this. It's expected that countries in Africa, many of them are likely to support this. and it follows fairly closely along the lines of people who have been supporting Infantino in his re-election bid. Many countries have already come out saying they would support him to run unopposed for president for another four-year term.

5:38And the pattern also isn't the same in terms of the most important question, unfortunately, with FIFA these days, which is money. And Infantino has made it very clear that he buys votes with money. He consistently offers member associations more money every time his candidacy comes up. And now that he's proposing this giant privatization of the World Cup, he's once again dangling, as you mentioned in the intro to this,£30 million, I think, is the rough estimate to these associations if they will vote for it. And at the same time, sort of an extortionary type of comment, which is if you don't vote for it, then you'll get less or no money.

6:17So there's a carrot and a stick being offered. Yeah, I mean, obviously he's not here to defend himself, apart from in that video. But in terms of what the consequences might be from big organizations like UEFA, which has come out very strongly against this, what do you think they will do or what could they do? Well, it's very interesting. I think everyone would agree that without the European teams to play in the World Cup, the Women's World Cup and the Club World Cup, those are events that are far less attractive. If you don't have England, Germany, France, et cetera, far few people want to buy tickets or tune in.

6:53And so that, in theory, is a tremendous amount of leverage for UEFA to say, look, if you don't reel this back or do something that we are approving of, then we're not going to participate. And so it is an opportunity for UEFA to really show its muscle. Whether it can stay unified and can make sure that everyone unifies in this is another question. They're certainly not obliged to be part of FIFA. One could imagine a scenario in which they peel away. And if they peel away, I think it's easy to imagine FIFA disappearing. But we've never seen that happen before. And so it's hard to predict whether there's that much unity and that much opposition to this proposal.

7:32Ken, thank you very much. New York Times journalist Ken Bensinger, who has written books about FIFA there. Well, let's turn to UEFA, because as we heard, it has accused FIFA of using the sport to enrich themselves and their friends. Jim Boyce is from Northern Ireland. He was vice president of FIFA from 2011 to 2015. He's been speaking to my colleague Tim Franks on the BBC World Service's NewsHour programme. So what does he make of this proposal? I'm totally against any sale off of FIFA than any private company. I think if Infantino had wanted to come up with something like this, he should have consulted, surely, all of the associations before something like this was announced.

8:15But from a personal point of view, I agree entirely with what UEFA is saying. I think UEFA are the strongest confederation still in world football. and if UEFA did decide that they're not going to take part in a World Cup because of these suggestions, certainly it would throw the whole thing into complete chaos. Do you think that is at all likely? It could get to the point where UEFA says, right, we are going to boycott the World Cup. I have to be honest with you, the strongest countries are UEFA countries. There's no doubt about that, apart obviously from Argentina. And yes, I think UEFA are so annoyed and so upset at what has been released here without at least the decency of consulting with the confederations.

9:07And I notice also that not only UEFA, but a few other of the confederations are against what is being suggested here at the moment. At the end of the day, money talks. Now, if this proposal is put and is put in such a way that the majority of the associations decide that they're going to go along with this plan, it's an awful lot of money. But personally, I think it's taken the game of football that I love, and I'm going tonight to see my local team play just in a pre-season friendly. I think it's taken the game away from the normal, ordinary football fan. And I know reading a lot of what I've read about this, a lot of them are absolutely astounded at this suggestion.

9:52So I guess one of FIFA's counter arguments would be, look, you know, we're just talking about the World Cup here. When we're talking about local clubs like the one that you're going to go and see later on today, they could end up benefiting because we're offering to reinvest tens of millions of dollars in every association's local games. Something like this should be discussed with the 211, I think it is, associations. It needs to have been put to them in such a way that they would know before something like this. I'm not saying it's forced upon them because at the end of the day they have the vote.

10:30But I think what has happened here is that this appears to have just been thrown at them without it even being discussed, I understand, by some of the vice presidents of FIFA who didn't know that it was happening either. So I think we need to actually get to the bottom of this. We need to find out what the exact criteria is going to be. And then people have to sit down and they have to sensibly look at things. But what must not happen is that the ordinary average football fan who loves the game has not been totally priced out and that this is not another FIFA money making scheme. The big problem here that a lot of people are seeing is that Johnny Infantino, who I knew very well when he was general secretary of UEFA when I was at UEFA, and I found him a very decent, sensible fellow.

11:20I think what has happened here is that power appears, appear to have gone a little bit to Johnny's head, and his relationship with Donald Trump during that World Cup is nothing more than astounding. That was Jim Boyce from Northern Ireland, former Vice President of FIFA, speaking to Tim Franks. Now, the impact of a summer of rolling heatwaves and absent rain became even clearer today as the Environment Agency confirmed that half of England is now officially in drought. The impact of all this is already being felt in low river flows, early harvests and a high risk of wildfires. More than 20 million people are already under hosepipe bans and today's announcement suggests there could be further restrictions on water use to come.

12:06Helen Wakeham is Director of Water at the Environment Agency. She says extreme weather is becoming more common. It's the third drought we've had in five years, so what we're seeing is a new normal. and what it means that the dry weather depletes our water supplies. The hot weather means that we use more of it, of course, and that has an effect on farming, it has an effect on our wildlife, and it does have an effect on our water supplies. Well, what has been described as the weather whiplash has certainly been having quite an impact on the farming community. We can speak now to Paul Tompkins, Deputy President of the National Farmers Union and member of the National Drought Group.

12:43Good evening, Paul. Good evening. So quite a few in recent years, as we've heard. But how serious would you say this drought is? Great question, because a drought status might change today, but it's going to come as no surprise to the farmers that I'm speaking to across the country, because they've been dealing with the effects of the prolonged dry weather for a number of weeks. and I think we are the first to talk about weather and that's for good reason because what we're dealing with now is climate change in action. And I don't think we always recognise that all the food we eat needs water.

13:23And I'll let that rest for a moment because I don't think we can think of any food that doesn't depend on water from on farms or in production to get it to our plates. And what we're seeing now through this dry weather and drought is definitely making it harder it's making it riskier and it's making it more costly to produce the food that we do every day what are farmers having to do then to to mitigate the the impact well i'll try and it's dangerous to divide farming community but i'll try and take that from two angles so some of our crops in the uk are irrigated or where we water them when that is available and the irrigation is obviously going to be severely impacted by the fact that reservoirs are low.

14:14It's important also to make a distinction here that the water infrastructure that's used for growing food is often very different or separate from the water infrastructure that we use in our households. So the water that's used for irrigation largely comes from other sources but that is seriously depleted I've been visiting on farm reservoirs across the country this week and they are looking seriously low but there's also then those other farmers that don't irrigate the 70 % of our countryside is grassland and you don't have to look beyond your local parkland to see what the effects of the dry weather is having on grass what that means is lower nutrition value for our animals so we're having to already feed what we have reserved for the winter months right now and that's before i talk about our combined crop sector or the farmers that grow our wheats and barleys that are turned into bread and beer well those yields uh the numbers are still being crunched but the ones that are coming off the combine so far are showing a harvest that is lower than this time last year so we bring all that big picture together and we've got a problem a problem that consumers are going to experience Well, I know that as those consumers once again turn to farmers to be able to produce food under yet another extreme weather event, I know we're up for that challenge.

15:42But I also know that that's going to be more achievable if farmers have the support of the government, the environment agencies, the water companies and, of course, the supply chain. and that latter part is the one that actually decides what this what's going to be on the and what are the most important aspects of that support for farmers paul um we could go on all night if um if i want we've got about 30 seconds but yes i know i know yeah i'll give i'll give you um just a couple to go from is look um what we really need now from governments is a joined up approach we need you know this is a we're talking emergency response time here so we need to think about a risk register for those farms that are vulnerable to a poor water supply and those animals on those farms and how that be affected and the other one I would leave you with is we really need an adaptable dynamic water abstraction program in the UK so that farmers can use the water when it is available because all water in the UK is licensed and sometimes those licenses wrap us in problems rather than enable us to produce food.

16:52Paul, many thanks for coming on and talking about a very important issue for farmers. Paul Tompkins, Deputy President of the National Farmers Union. Say g'day to an epic Melbourne adventure. Welcome on board. Hop on a Qantas flight to Melbourne where you can uncover amazing experiences. So what are you waiting for? Come and say g'day. Well, in the future, one reply to a friendly g'day on a Qantas flight might be, which day? Because the airline, in conjunction with Airbus, has just completed its first ever test flight lasting more than 24 hours, which is possibly a new world record. The flight, which was actually from Melbourne to the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, is part of the airline's plan to reshape long-haul travel by cutting out stopovers from Australia to Europe.

17:40It's called Project Sunrise, and from next year, Qantas is hoping to launch the world's longest non-stop regular flight from London to Sydney. Well, the Airbus test flight pilot, Vincent Sibel, told me about what it had been like on board. It was just amazing. We experienced all along this flight many, many, many things, like to sunset, to sunrise. The crew was super excited to do that. We were all on the flight quite awake and focused on this flight. Glad to hear you were awake. Was there some extra preparation that you needed to do just to do those extra few hours? No. In fact, we applied the basic role like any airlines will apply in terms of rest and duty.

18:27so we anticipate the scheduling for each of the pilots who is doing what, take-off, landing and we apply the duty and rest period and for each of us we add four duty then four rest, then four duties, etc. And the swap like that meaning that the one who did the take-off and the landing were completely fit for that. The two sunsets and two sunrises is clearly spectacular and, you know, not been done before. Beyond that, what are the advantages of being able to fly for so long? In one flight, you cross half of the world, and honestly, we had the feeling that it went fast. At any point during the flight, we said, oh, gosh, we have to wait so many hours before landing.

19:17No, no. Each time we had a look on the clock, we said, wow, it runs so fast. And the reason you're able to fly for these extra hours is because the plane's modified. It has this additional fuel tank, doesn't it? Yes, exactly. That's the main novelty of this ULR version of J350-1000. We have an extra tank that allows onboarding more fuel and that permits to do such flight. And this is a test flight. But what is the eventual plan then? We were committed to do more than 23 flight hours. Why? Because in the worst case, their flight from Sydney to London might go up to 22 hours. So to secure the visibility of such flights, all together, we decided to go a little bit beyond.

20:08And that's why we said the minimum is 23 flight hours. Just to have the wiggle room if there's issues or, you know, with having to reroute or having, you know, to the weather conditions. You just need that extra comfort, that extra padding of time. Exactly. Now, what's the experience going to be like? I suppose people listening are wondering what the experience would be like if you are in an economy seat for 24 hours. Can you reassure people it would still be a decent experience? Honestly, it's quite comfortable in terms of noise. It's definitely a quiet aircraft in terms of temperature, air recirculation, things like that as well.

20:53It's one of the best we can do. And on top, what has been anticipated on this aircraft compared to others is that there is a social area that has been designed for passengers to have rest, to start up, to walk a little bit. exchange with others. It's different to a flight where you stay on your seat for 16 or 17 hours without any space to walk or to discuss or to stand up. Vincent Sibel, who was the pilot, one of the pilots on that first commercial test flight lasting more than 24 hours. Quick reminder, if you want to listen back to any of this programme or to previous ones, you can go to BBC Sounds, where you can also download the podcast.

21:36The main headline so far on The World Tonight, FIFA has promised national football associations the equivalent of£30 million each if they back its contentious plan to sell stakes in major competitions. Many member countries say they are being pressured to accept. And the Environment Agency says seven regions covering large parts of central, eastern and southern England are now in official drought conditions. Controls have been put in place to manage how much water can be taken from rivers. Now, at a care home in North London this morning, Andy Burnham, the UK's seventh Prime Minister in a decade, had his own not-another-one moment.

22:16Andrew. Yes, that's it. You are the local candidate, are you? Oh, I was a local candidate. I had a by-election a few weeks ago, but I'm now the Prime Minister. You're what? He's the Prime Minister. Well, a new one. Another one. I know, I know, I know. Yes, plenty of other people know how that resident of the care home feels. Another Prime Minister and the latest in a long line to identify as a priority. The issue, he was at that care home to speak about, the need to reform social care in England. Change absolutely must tackle the long-standing and damaging divide between health and social care.

23:02We are offering a long-term solution for the sustainability of social care. We will fix the crisis in social care once and for all. The challenge is absolutely right. We have to fix social care. Well, all of those prime ministers have come up against the issue of how to pay for the rising costs of caring for an ageing population. Since he came to office a whole nine days ago, Andy Burnham has said he is willing to use up political capital on adult social care. and today he announced he was speeding up the timetable of Baroness Casey's Social Care Commission, which will now report next year instead of in 2028.

23:37And he gave the strongest indication yet that at some point using up that capital would involve asking the public to pay more. Firstly, you have to do more with what you've got. But I think some of what we would want to do in the fullest sense will require difficult decisions. But we will be honest with people about those. we will put them before the country at the right time and we will hopefully proceed with people's consent. Well, ideas about how to fund social care will form part of the big conversation that was launched today by Baroness Casey, that public consultation about what has been a pretty intractable problem.

24:16We can talk now to someone who's been thinking about it for some time, Charlotte Pickles, Chief Executive of ReState, is a think tank whose stated mission is to come up with bold ideas to remake the state. Good evening, Charlotte. Good evening. And you do have a plan, don't you? We do. We do, yes. And I think it's brilliant to hear a prime minister not kicking social care into the long grass, but actually bringing forward the KC commission. But you're absolutely right. The elephant in the room is how you fund it. And we've heard so much rhetoric, so much talk, so many speeches about needing to do something.

24:50But ultimately, it's going to take an awful lot of money. And what we're hearing is that that might be an increase in general taxation. So what could that look like? It could be an increase in national insurance. We obviously saw Boris Johnson try that, or it could be an increase in income tax. The problem with that is that general taxation tends to get diverted. So it's not guaranteed to go to social care and new government comes in, they decide they've got a different priority and suddenly social care is in crisis again. So what we're saying is actually we need to create, yes, people are going to have to pay more.

25:26We're calling it a small levy, essentially, on your earnings. We're saying about 1.8%. But that money should go into a later life care fund. So a specific fund, it's privately managed. The Treasury can't decide to dip into it to pay for something else. And actually then when you get to the point of needing social care, you can draw down from that pot. And you're suggesting not starting to pay into it until you're mid-30s, so you don't have the sense that, you know, it's young people funding, you know, older people's care somewhere in the distance. Exactly. So, I mean, some people might still think they're quite young at 34, but yes, exactly.

26:06Yes, I'm showing my age. No, I mean, I share it. But yes, exactly. And this is actually in place in other countries as well. So, for example, Japan and Germany both have models like this. And in Japan, you start paying at 40. In Germany, it's younger. But what we're essentially saying is, exactly, you get to the age of 34. And hopefully at that point, you know, you're in work, you kind of know what you're doing. And at that point, you start paying and then you pay each year until the point at which you get to pensionable age. But you're absolutely right. The key here and the real problem with today's model is that, you know, everyone today paying tax is actually paying for the current demand.

26:49You know, it's paying for people who are currently using social care. And of course, we know actually that younger generations today are on the whole poorer than the older generation. So older generations are actually much wealthier. That's really unfair. And what we don't want, therefore, is younger generations to have to continue doing that. And we know that there are fewer people of working age paying for more and more wealthier, older people. And what about the language? I note you're calling yours a levy. And that's what Boris Johnson talked about as well, wasn't it? And obviously he was doing it during the pandemic, which gave him the kind of, you know, he could say, look, you know, we're doing this all at once.

27:26but a levy rather than a tax because, you know, already the accusations that anything that looks like a tax will be called a death tax, a dementia tax, all those sort of political labels that get put on attempts to try and deal with this. So you may say, well, you would say that, Charlotte, wouldn't you? But I think ours is actually a levy. It's not a tax. Now, don't get me wrong. It will feel like it. If you're paying it, you're still seeing that 1.8 % going out of your paycheck. But the reason it's not a tax is it's not going to the Treasury. It's not something that a minister, a prime minister can just decide how they're going to allocate.

28:04It's not going into that general pool of tax revenue. And that's why it's different from being a straight tax. It is a levy because it's going into a fund. That fund is privately managed. It's getting interest. It's getting returns. And it's there for you. If you've paid into it, you can draw down on it. And that's different to what Boris Johnson tried to do, which really was a tax. Right. And this is all being fed into the Casey Commission, is it, your idea? It is. It is. And I think it's great that, you know, Baroness Casey, we know, is the kind of problem solver of Whitehall, isn't she? She's always called in with these really wicked problems to try and come up with the answer.