That UEFA and FIFA were at loggerheads was already clear from the confrontation over the project that aimed to partially privatize the commercial rights of the World Cup. Now, however, from the obvious distrust towards president Gianni Infantino we want to get to the stamped papers. In a new statement the European body accuses the actions of the number 1 in world football. And he presented a 55-page document with which he aims to gather evidence to report him.
The statement
“Although the immediate question of participation has now been resolved, the underlying crisis is not. Abandoning the FFE project does not erase the deception, intimidation and abuse of power that made it possible. Nor does it restore the trust that has been lost.” This is what UEFA writes in its fiery statement against Infantino. The body, led by Aleksander Ceferin, criticizes not only the merit of the Fifa forward enterprise project, but also the method.
With the FFE they wanted to transfer the commercial rights of the World Cup (men’s, women’s and club) to a new company. 20 percent of this entity would have been sold to a consortium of private investors including Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump’s son-in-law. UEFA, along with other federations, immediately objected, scuppering the plan: “Delegates were also informed that FIFA has now confirmed in writing that the FIFA forward enterprise project has been ‘irrevocably and permanently withdrawn’ and that ‘it will not reappear in any other form, structure, name or manner’.”
The request to the US Court
At a UEFA meeting in Munich those present “unanimously instructed the president and the administration to pursue every possible institutional, political and legal avenue necessary to ensure fundamental reform, restore appropriate limits to presidential authority and ensure that FIFA returns to being governed as an institution”. Among the moves under consideration there is also “a truly independent external review of Fifa forward enterprise, with full access to all relevant documents, communications and minutes of decisions”.
For this reason, as various media reported, UEFA would have turned to the US District Court. The objective is to obtain an order allowing access to FIFA documents. So that, if necessary, criminal action can be taken against Infantino. A criminal proceeding that would take place in Switzerland, where FIFA is based.