A day after beleaguered FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced that the organization was scrapping a heavily scrutinized plan to sell minority stakes in the World Cup and other tournaments to private investors, UEFA released a scathing statement that depicted its lost confidence in Infantino.
“When Gianni Infantino asked for the trust and the votes of FIFA’s Member Associations to elect him as their president in 2016,” the statement reads, “he said, ‘Of course we have to be transparent. I have been this in the last 15 years of my life in UEFA. You will have to play a part every day in the life of FIFA,’ before telling the assembled stakeholders, ‘The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA president. It’s your money. You are the national associations and the money of FIFA has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.’
“On both these promises, he has failed to deliver. The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through was anything but transparent.”
The controversial proposal was unanimously rejected by UEFA’s national associations. Fierce opposition came in spades throughout the soccer sphere, with all six of the continental confederations weighing in, some more vehemently than others.
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The ubiquitous disgust culminated in FIFA abandoning its scheme.
UEFA didn’t pull any punches along the way. In fact, on Thursday, the European organization — which has had a member win five of the past six men’s World Cups — revealed a unanimous vote to boycott all FIFA competitions until the plan was discarded and FIFA provided binding assurances that it would “never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.”
In its statement on Saturday, UEFA continued to convey its frustration with what it characterized as “secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game.”
UEFA also emphasized that, in cooperation with other confederations, it will “devise a plan” to ensure similar transactions aren’t considered.
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“That review should be thorough and fundamental,” UEFA’s Saturday statement reads. “No option should be off the table. The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”
Outrage spread when news of FIFA’s ploy surfaced earlier this week. Infantino’s strategy, which could have earned him a significant sum of money, reportedly included selling stakes in the World Cup to Joshua Kushner, the brother of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to The Times. Had that transaction happened, per The Times, it would’ve been completed through venture-capital firm Thrive Capital, and a company named FIFA Forward Enterprise would’ve controlled selling media rights, sponsorships and tickets for the top men’s and women’s competitions.
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UEFA stated Saturday that Infantino has “failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.”
“UEFA will begin work immediately with partners and stakeholders all over the world and right across the game to propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward program,” UEFA’s latest statement reads.
“We must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in FIFA’s bank account to deliver the kickstart that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of FIFA. But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.”
The statement concludes, referencing FIFA’s much-maligned collapsed plan: “This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in FIFA has only just begun.”
Infantino’s current term expires in 2027. He’s poised to be up for re-election in March. Challengers opposing Infantino must file their candidacies by Nov. 18, per The Athletic.
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