European football governing body UEFA is preparing to pursue criminal proceedings against FIFA President Gianni Infantino‘s plan to sell a stake in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors.
Documents seen by BBC Sport show that UEFA has applied for access to evidence and documents that it intends to use in potential criminal proceedings in Switzerland against Infantino and FIFA.
UEFA alleges that the controversial proposal was designed to benefit Infantino and a small group of individuals and private investors at the expense of FIFA, its member associations and the wider football community.
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“In truth, it was a vehicle for Infantino and that small circle to acquire a permanent stake in and otherwise profit from FIFA’s most valuable assets to the detriment of FIFA, its members, and other parties within the football family,” UEFA said in its application.
Infantino announced the creation of FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) in July as a proposed commercial vehicle that would hold the rights to FIFA’s men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup.
The plan envisaged selling around 20% of the new entity to private investors for approximately $4.2 billion.
The proposal triggered widespread opposition from UEFA and other stakeholders before FIFA eventually abandoned the plan.
UEFA alleges that the proposal was pushed through FIFA’s internal approval process without sufficient consultation and that some officials were given only hours to consider the multi-billion-dollar scheme.
“Infantino pushed the plan through internal FIFA approval only days earlier at a hastily convened meeting where a limited number of FIFA’s management officials and employees, some of whom had never heard of the plan, were given mere hours to sign off on an unprecedented multi-billion dollar scheme,” the application states.
UEFA is also challenging the valuation attached to the proposed stake, arguing that it was not independently assessed and could have undervalued FIFA’s most valuable commercial assets.
“Under the terms Infantino announced, those investors stood to acquire a permanent financial interest in FIFA’s commercial arm for $4.2bn, implying an absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20bn,” UEFA said.
It added that the valuation was neither determined through an open competitive auction nor tested by an independent valuer.
UEFA is seeking access to documents from a US court in Florida because businesses operated by FIFA in connection with the 2026 World Cup are based there.
The governing body intends to use the evidence in potential criminal proceedings in Switzerland.
“UEFA and other interested parties are preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino and possibly other FIFA officials and advisors for criminal mismanagement,” the application states.
UEFA claims the proposed transaction could have harmed its 55 member associations and damaged FIFA’s reputation, governance and commercial relationships.
“The secretive structuring, valuation, financing, and marketing inflicted direct and concrete injury on FIFA’s reputation, governance authority, and commercial relationships to the detriment of FIFA as well as its 211 members, including UEFA’s 55 member associations,” it said.
The allegations represent a significant escalation in the increasingly strained relationship between UEFA and Infantino.
UEFA maintains that the plan was developed secretly for more than a year without the knowledge of FIFA’s Council, the confederations or FIFA’s 211 member associations.
The application states that Infantino publicly unveiled the proposal on July 28, 2026, without consulting UEFA or the other confederations.
“On July 28, 2026, without consulting the FIFA Council, UEFA, or any of the other confederations, or any of the 211 FIFA member associations, Infantino, purportedly acting on behalf of FIFA, publicly announced a plan to place the commercial rights to the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup into a new subsidiary: FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE),” UEFA said.
It described the announcement as the public unveiling of a plan that Infantino and a small group had allegedly been developing in secret for more than a year.
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