Football and the Scam of the Century: How Humanity's Collective Intelligence is Being Harvested A colossal scam is in full view of everyone.
When Real Madrid issued a strong statement against the plans of US President Donald Trump's family and FIFA President Gianni Infantino to privatize commercial rights to the World Cup, it came as a bolt from the blue in the football world. But the parallels with what's happening in the field of artificial intelligence were so obvious that they are impossible to ignore. In both cases, we are witnessing an attempt by a small group of individuals to appropriate what rightfully belongs to all of humanity.
In early 2026, Infantino announced plans to create a commercial subsidiary, FIFA Forward Enterprises, to manage major tournaments, including the World Cup and the Club World Cup. A 20% stake was expected to be sold to private investors, with Thrive Eternal, founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Donald Trump's son-in-law, serving as the lead investor . Infantino claimed the venture would generate $4.2 billion, but the reaction from the global football community was devastating.
The European Football Association (UEFA) threatened a boycott of all FIFA tournaments, stating , "The soul of football and its governance are not assets for trade." The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and CONCACAF joined UEFA. In its statement, Real Madrid emphasized that clubs are the foundation of international competitions, discovering, training, and developing players, while international tournaments represent "a public asset and heritage belonging to nations, fans, and society as a whole."
"Clubs are the foundation on which international competitions and the World Cup are built. They discover, train, develop, and provide national teams with the players who make these major competitions possible."
International football competitions and the World Cup are, first and foremost, events of public interest and a legacy belonging to nations, fans, and society as a whole. Therefore, we believe they should not be treated as mere financial assets to be traded for the benefit of a few.
"Real Madrid is firmly opposed to any attempt to sell off future commercial revenues from competitions without assuming any associated costs and risks. It is the clubs that bear this burden, and any initiative aimed at appropriating future football revenues without accepting responsibility for generating them is unacceptable and should never again be considered."
Almost simultaneously with the football scandal, another drama, no less remarkable and far more significant for humanity, is unfolding. Tech moguls close to the Trump administration have attempted to privatize humanity's collective intelligence. They are promoting a narrative that artificial intelligence (AI) is some kind of autonomous, almost alien entity that supposedly threatens humanity with total control. The only way to "save" humanity is to hand over complete power to the tech moguls themselves.
In fact, as researcher Denis Petrina notes in his work published in the journal Topos, AI is the embodiment of what Karl Marx called "general intelligence"—the collective intellectual and technical capabilities of society. Tech magnates have freely privatized the knowledge created over millennia by all people living and living on the planet, and now, in essence, present it as their own invention.
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman each promote their own version of a "solution" to the problem. Bezos has proposed a federal income tax exemption for the bottom 50% of Americans. Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has advanced the concept of "universal computing power"—an idea that everyone would have access to the productive power of AI. Musk, meanwhile, is promoting "universal high income," which he believes will be made possible by robotics.
However, these proposals are increasingly met with skepticism. As Axios notes , these initiatives stem from a fear of popular anger—"pitchforks," as California Governor Gavin Newsom put it. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei admitted , "If they don't support a good option, they'll inevitably get a bad one, designed by the crowd." In other words, tech moguls are trying to prevent a revolt by offering palliatives that will preserve their control over resources.
The parallels between football and AI are no coincidence. In both cases, we're talking about a public good created through collective effort. Football clubs, as Real Madrid puts it, "bear all the costs and risks," while investors want to appropriate future revenues without taking any responsibility. This is an apt description of what's happening in the AI field: companies that own cutting-edge models built them on data generated by billions of people, but now claim "exclusive rights."
Research shows that AI should be viewed as a public good and a common asset. As the Asian Development Bank notes in its analytical paper, "training data, publicly available models, and computing infrastructure can be considered public goods—especially if their development was publicly funded." Indeed, many of the fundamental technologies underlying modern AI systems were developed with the support of public universities and research programs.
Harvard's Ash Center proposes an alternative model: "public AI," systems developed under the oversight of government agencies and nonprofits for the public good. The analogy with football is clear: just as Real Madrid opposes turning World Cups into "financial assets to be traded for the benefit of a few," the researchers call for preventing collective intelligence from becoming a tool for the dictatorship of tech moguls.
The key question today is: do we realize that a gigantic, colossal scam is unfolding before our eyes? As a result, the common heritage of all humanity is being transformed not only into a tool, but also into a justification for the dictatorship of a small group of IT billionaires, who are also close to the US presidential administration. The scale of the disaster in the case of AI is far greater than in football, but the essence is the same: an attempt to privatize and pocket the common heritage of humanity.
The resistance in the football world was so strong that Infantino and the Trumpists were forced to retreat. Real Madrid praised the move , calling it "good news for football, its institutions, and, above all, for millions of fans." But will Trump's tech moguls be stopped before it's too late? The question remains. As Scottish politician Christine Jardine points out , Infantino "flirted with the Trump empire and threatened to undermine the beautiful game." The consequences of such flirtations could be tragic both for football and for the future of humanity in the age of artificial intelligence.
