FIFA President Gianni Infantino has issued a powerful call for increased investment in football, including within the United States, to help realise the goal of making the sport truly global.

Speaking at the 29th annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, United States, which convened over 4,000 participants and 900 speakers to tackle urgent world challenges, Mr Infantino highlighted the untapped economic potential of the game outside of its traditional heartlands.

Addressing an audience of influential investors and business leaders at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, the FIFA President noted that while global football GDP is approximately USD 300 billion annually, it remains heavily skewed towards Europe.

“The global football or soccer (gross domestic product (GDP)) worldwide is around USD 300 billion a year, so it’s quite sizeable, right? Not huge, but quite sizeable,” Mr Infantino explained.

“What is interesting is that 70% of this is generated in Europe, (while) the US accounts for around 3% in this whole ecosystem. Now, we all know... if the US would be doing 30%, not 100%, 30% of what Europe does – I think the US is capable of doing 30% of what Europe does – I think, in soccer, we’re speaking about USD 100billion a year GDP impact in the US.”

The FIFA President urged Americans interested in investing in soccer to look to their own doorstep, expressing surprise at the current trend of domestic capital flowing primarily toward European clubs.

“That’s one of the most surprising things in sports business – I mean, that Americans don’t believe in America. That is something that I cannot understand,” he said.

Mr Infantino said he hoped to see Major League Soccer (MLS) continue its growth and to become a globally competitive league.

“Now, the MLS has done a great job in growing since 1994. It was 10 teams; now it’s 30,” he said. “It is growing, but now it has to jump to the next level, and for me as FIFA President, I want to have the MLS, the league in the US, compete with the best leagues in Europe; and I want the league in China, as well, competing, or in Saudi Arabia, or in other parts of the world, because only this will make the game really global and truly global.”

The FIFA President urged investors to help bring top players to the US and to help develop more homegrown talent.

“This means that investors in the US have to believe in US soccer, have to invest in it, have to bring the players, of course, have to bring players, right? The best players,” he said. “[Lionel] Messi, shows it. But you cannot count only on one player. You need to bring the best players and then you need to train the best players as well.”

Addressing the economics of the FIFA World Cup 2026™, the first edition to feature 48 teams, Mr Infantino said that the tournament would help to finance the development of the game around the world as well as will having a massive economic footprint, creating an estimated 800,000 jobs and generating an impact of USD 80 billion globally.

“FIFA is a not-for-profit organisation today, meaning that all the revenues that we generate are reinvested in the game all over the world, in Africa, in Asia, in Central America, in the Caribbean, in Oceania, everywhere in the world,” he said, noting the body was made up of 211 FIFA Member Associations (MAs).

“We have one event that generates revenues every four years. It’s the (FIFA) World Cup. One month. Forty-seven months of the years, we invest the money that we earn in that one year to organise women’s competitions, youth competitions, training, development programmes, financing all leagues and football associations all over the world.

“So, 150 countries in the world probably would not have football the way we know it, structured football, organised football, if it wasn’t thanks to the revenues that we generate in an event like the FIFA World Cup,” he added.

The FIFA President also reminded the conference of the unique social value of the sport, describing FIFA as the “official happiness provider to humanity”.

“So, to all the investors, what is there better than to invest in happiness? If you invest in FIFA, you invest in happiness, you invest in the world, you invest in children, you invest in our future,” he concluded.