UEFA has called an emergency meeting of its 55 member associations for later this week to discuss FIFA's proposal to sell minority stakes in its major competitions, including the World Cup — a plan one senior English football figure has likened to the European Super League debacle of 2021.

FIFA wants to create a new commercial subsidiary, called FFE, to run its flagship events. External investors would be able to buy non-controlling stakes, raising up to $4.2 billion (£3.1 billion), according to Sky Sports. The governing body says the money would extend global development funding to $10 billion (£7.5 billion), with each of its 211 member associations offered access to up to $20 million (£15 million) in one-off capital.

The meeting will be held virtually and will include discussion of a potential World Cup boycott as one option to oppose the private investment plan, ESPN reports.

The Football Association says it was not consulted before FIFA released its proposals. UEFA issued its own statement before FIFA had even published the plans, reacting to initial reports in the Financial Times and the Times. FIFA then released its proposals shortly after UEFA's statement went public.

The comparison being drawn behind closed doors is serious. One senior source within the English game told BBC Sport that the threat posed by FIFA's plan is on a par with the European Super League — the breakaway project that collapsed within 48 hours of its announcement in 2021 after a furious backlash from fans, players, and governments alike.

UEFA carries real weight in this fight. Its 55 associations account for a quarter of FIFA's 211-country membership, and Europe's on-field dominance is hard to ignore: five of the eight quarter-finalists at the 2022 World Cup were European, and six of eight reached that stage in 2018.

This is not the first time FIFA has floated ideas that rattled the European establishment. In 2021, Arsène Wenger — FIFA's chief of global football development — proposed hosting the World Cup every two years. That plan was eventually shelved amid widespread opposition from leagues, federations, and fan groups.

What makes this moment different is the money on the table and where it comes from. FIFA is effectively asking whether private investors — the kind who buy into sports franchises and media rights — should own a slice of the World Cup itself. For supporters who have watched football's governing bodies chase commercial growth at every turn, the question is whether the sport's most treasured competition stays a shared institution or becomes an asset on someone's balance sheet.

UEFA's response this week will offer the first real indication of whether Europe's federations are prepared to fight that battle, and how far they are willing to go.