#uefa boycott

European football associations have warned they could boycott future FIFA World Cup tournaments if FIFA moves forward with its controversial proposal to sell minority ownership stakes in the competition's commercial rights to private investors

The text of the statement is really quite important

"As a result of today's discussion, no UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive"

This doesn't say that UEFA will boycott the World Cups. It says it will boycott "any FIFA competition".

That is quite a large distinction. Because - if I understand it a right - the FIFA Under 20 Women's World Cup starts in September, and it's hosted by Poland. Which - as far as I am aware - is in UEFA.

This means that the host country would be boycotting the tournament, as would five of the other teams that have qualified. It's not entirely clear what would happen to the six slots that these teams occupy.

England are one of the teams, just as a matter of interest.

We're going to see a lot of this happening. And it will only get worse as qualifying for more tournaments approaches.