FIFA and Saudi partner in $1 billion infra pledge including discounted loans for the construction of stadiums.
Fifa partners with Saudi Arabia and pledges $1bn to fund football infrastructure.
A partnership between Fifa and a Saudi Arabian government agency has been launched, with a guarantee of up to $1 billion (£762 million) to support the development of football infrastructure worldwide.
The Saudi Fund for Development and the game’s international governing body inked a memorandum of agreement on Monday that would allow the Saudi Fund for Development to provide subsidised loans “for the construction and rehabilitation” of stadiums and other facilities. Under the agreement, developing countries will receive priority for any financing.
In a statement Fifa said that the new partnership would seek to “support national governments in designing, financing, and building modern multi-sport venues”.
“Many of our Fifa member associations need additional support for the infrastructure necessary to host competitions,” he said. “This agreement is a crucial step in ensuring our Fifa member associations have the facilities to make football truly global.”
Fifa is a not-for-profit organisation and, in a recent letter to the Guardian, its director of media, Bryan Swanson said: “The revenue [Fifa] generates is reinvested to fuel the growth of football – men, women, youth – throughout Fifa’s 211 member associations globally. Fifa already distributes millions of dollars of its funds to its member associations each year under the Fifa Forward programme. This money is largely used to cover the running costs of associations and for developing participation at a national level, however, and it is understood that a different scale of funding was deemed necessary for the development of stadiums, and national stadiums in particular.”