The sheer size of the number stunned the room.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino told his top board last month that a fund of investors from the Middle East and Asia wanted to pay about $25 billion to buy an expanded version of FIFA’s Club World Cup as well as the rights to a proposed global league for national teams.

According to several people with direct knowledge of the meeting, held in Bogotá, Colombia, last month, details of the offer were scant. Infantino did not reveal the identity of the investors to the assembled FIFA Council, though he said the group wanted a speedy decision on its offer.

Such an agreement would be unprecedented. FIFA has never sold control of its events to the highest bidder, and never to an investment fund.

The council rejected Infantino’s request to push forward with the proposal, saying it needed more information. But the fact that Infantino would even entertain such a proposal illustrates global soccer’s current state of flux. The sport’s top clubs, its leading figureheads and deep-pocketed investors are dueling with one another to try to unearth new ways to capitalize on the world’s most popular sport.