UEFA applauds scrapping of ‘shabby’ share-sale plan but says Infantino failed transparency test
PARIS – Fifa president Gianni Infantino has lost the “confidence” of European football’s governing body after his plan to allow private investment in the World Cup was withdrawn following a global backlash.
UEFA and its 55 member associations had threatened to boycott all Fifa competitions if Infantino had insisted on trying to push through a plan that they dismissed on Saturday as a “shabby, backroom, opaque deal”.
Fifa’s plan, which had envisaged raising up to $4.2 billion based on a valuation of $20 billion for Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE), a planned commercial subsidiary to run events such as the World Cup and Club World Cup.
It said the project could provide each of Fifa’s 211 member associations with a one-off payment of $20 million in early 2027 and increase their funding allocation for the 2027-30 cycle from $8 million to $20 million.
All that has gone up in smoke and UEFA rammed home the damage that has been done just weeks after Fifa and Infantino had basked in the afterglow of what was judged a successful World Cup, the first with 48 teams and spread over three countries.
“The current Fifa leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family,” read the statement.
While UEFA welcomed the withdrawal of a proposal unanimously rejected by itself and also by other confederations “whose job it is to protect football” it did not hold back in its criticism of Infantino.
The statement said the 56-year-old Swiss had broken promises he made when he successfully first sought election in 2016 — namely to be “transparent” and that Fifa’s money was “your (the member associations) money and “not the money of the Fifa President.”
“On both these promises, he has failed to deliver,” said UEFA.
“The shabby, backroom, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through were anything but transparent.
‘Cannot occur again’
“And with reserves standing at over $5 billion, he has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.”
UEFA said “we cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast track timescales”, and that now was the time for responsible parties to come together and prevent it happening again.
“It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again,” they said.
“That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table.”
Infantino was expected to be re-elected unopposed for a third and final term next year but this humiliating spectacle has perhaps opened the way for a rival to step forward.
UEFA were already at loggerheads with Fifa. Their president Aleksander Ceferin boycotted the World Cup final.
“This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story,” UEFA said.
“The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in Fifa has only just begun.”