FIFA's $20 billion commercial plan faces a European World Cup boycott threat that endangers JPMorgan's fundraising.
FIFA, a not-for-profit, would put everything it commercialises, such as media rights and tickets, into a single entity and sell a 20% stake to financial investors. The $4.2 billion raised would be paid in equal $20 million amounts to its 211 member associations to invest in football, making the overall product more valuable.
Answered around 2:54Critics say FIFA is selling the soul of the game. It is a not-for-profit whose competition people play for the spirit of their national teams, and turning it into just another financial product takes away that spirit. Europe's football governing body said none of its countries would play in the next World Cup if the plan proceeds.
Answered around 3:30JPMorgan has worked on the deal secretly for months and says investor phones are ringing off the hook. The bank and others, including former Liberty Media CEO Greg Mathais, argue it isn't a breakaway league like the European Super League but a standard playbook, seen with the PGA, of selling a stake in a sub-entity.
Answered around 4:59Amazon Web Services, its cloud business, grew faster last quarter, with sales up 37% year on year, beating analyst expectations. Capital expenditure increased and free cash flow turned negative on a trailing 12-month basis, but investors seemed satisfied with the balance between AI growth and spending, sending shares up in after-hours trading.
Answered around 1:16Situational Awareness, a hedge fund started by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI engineer, used bank leverage to amplify AI stock bets. When those stocks fell in July, it faced heavy pressure and sold most of its public portfolio to Citadel in one of the largest rushed stock transactions in Wall Street history. Neither firm commented.
Answered around 5:52Uranium occurs naturally across the southern DRC and is often mingled with cobalt and copper. One of the world's highest-grade uranium mines is there and supplied material for the World War II atom bombs, though it has long since closed. The DRC is the world's largest cobalt producer, essential for smartphone and EV batteries.
Answered around 9:26New research calculates that at least 2,000 tons of uranium left the country inadvertently at low grades within cobalt exports. If enriched, that would run a large nuclear reactor for about a decade. Some officials and experts worry this could be a way to smuggle nuclear material, or at least a blind spot in uranium supply chains.
Answered around 10:24Most is exported as cobalt hydroxide to China, the biggest cobalt processor and battery maker, and a nuclear power with many reactors and weapons. Nobody knows what happens to the uranium there: it could be removed and end up in waste heaps, or extracted and used as metal.
Answered around 10:56DRC officials have worked for decades to control naturally occurring radioactive material, but cobalt is a new channel as production surged with electric vehicles. They are considering radiation detection monitors every truck on the main highway into Zambia must pass, and discussing funding for better monitoring with donors including the U.S. government.
Answered around 11:39The FT Weekend Festival takes place on Saturday, September 5th at Kenwood House Gardens in London or online, with FT journalists and leading voices across business, politics, economics, culture and the arts. Podcast listeners save 10% on tickets with the code FTpodcast at ft.com/festival.
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