European football’s governing body is seeking documents in the United States as it prepares a potential Swiss criminal complaint over Gianni Infantino’s abandoned plan to sell a stake in FIFA’s World Cup commercial business.
The confrontation between UEFA and FIFA President Gianni Infantino has entered a potentially explosive new phase, with European football’s governing body preparing a possible criminal complaint in Switzerland over the controversial and ultimately abandoned attempt to sell part of FIFA’s most valuable commercial rights to private investors.
UEFA has applied to a United States federal court for access to documents and testimony connected with the FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE, project, which proposed placing commercial rights to some of FIFA’s major competitions into a new corporate structure and selling a significant minority stake to outside investors.
The requested evidence is intended for use in potential proceedings against Infantino in Switzerland, where FIFA is headquartered. UEFA alleges that the development of the project may amount to criminal mismanagement, although no criminal court has established wrongdoing and the allegations remain to be tested.
The extraordinary legal escalation follows weeks of turmoil inside world football after details emerged of a proposal that would have transferred valuable commercial assets associated with the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup into the new FIFA Forward Enterprise.
Under the proposal reported by Reuters, an investor group involving Thrive Eternal, associated with U.S. investment firm Thrive Capital, would have invested approximately $4.2 billion in exchange for roughly a 20 percent interest in the business. The transaction would have implied an enterprise valuation of around $20 billion.
UEFA contends that FIFA’s commercial assets may have been worth considerably more and has questioned why such a consequential transaction was not subjected to a competitive auction or an independent valuation process. The Guardian reported that UEFA’s filing argues a more credible valuation could have exceeded $30 billion.
At the center of UEFA’s case is not simply the valuation, but the way the proposal was allegedly developed.
According to the application described by Reuters, UEFA claims Infantino worked on the project with a limited circle of advisers and prospective investors without adequately involving FIFA’s governing Council or the organization’s 211 national member associations. UEFA argues that decisions involving assets of such strategic importance should have been subjected to far greater institutional scrutiny.
That accusation strikes directly at one of the most sensitive issues in international football: governance.
FIFA controls the World Cup, the most commercially valuable event in global sport, and distributes billions of dollars generated by broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing agreements. Decisions affecting the long-term ownership or control of those commercial rights therefore carry implications far beyond FIFA headquarters.
The FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal promised substantial new funding for national associations. FIFA materials indicated that more than $10 billion could eventually have been distributed among its members, with participating associations potentially receiving an initial payment of about $20 million.
But critics saw the plan very differently.
European associations reacted with alarm when details emerged in late July. UEFA called an emergency meeting of its 55 members and even considered the extraordinary possibility of European countries boycotting FIFA competitions if the proposal went ahead.
Opposition quickly extended beyond Europe.
The Asian Football Confederation and Concacaf also expressed serious concerns, while internal dissent emerged inside FIFA itself. Senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro resigned amid the controversy, and FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour publicly criticized what he regarded as inadequate consultation surrounding the initiative.
Facing a widening revolt, Infantino abandoned the project at the beginning of August.
He said the initiative had created divisions that were no longer compatible with FIFA’s objective of maintaining unity within football and confirmed that the proposal would not proceed.
The withdrawal, however, did not end the crisis.
UEFA made clear almost immediately that it regarded the controversy as evidence of a broader governance problem inside FIFA. European officials accused the organization of relying on opaque decision-making and demanded an independent review of the entire episode.
Those demands have now evolved into legal action.
UEFA’s U.S. court application seeks evidence from FIFA-related entities in Florida and other parties connected with the development of the transaction. The mechanism being pursued would allow evidence located in the United States to be obtained for use in contemplated foreign proceedings.
The documents could provide a detailed record of how the FFE proposal originated, who participated in negotiations, how the valuation was determined and what information was presented—or not presented—to FIFA’s governing bodies.
UEFA has stressed that Thrive Capital and its founder Joshua Kushner are not themselves targets of its contemplated criminal complaint, according to the Guardian. Its focus is instead on the conduct and decision-making process within FIFA.
That distinction is important.
A commercial investor negotiating favorable terms is not necessarily acting improperly simply because the seller may later be accused of undervaluing an asset. UEFA’s allegations are directed principally at whether FIFA officials properly fulfilled their duties when handling assets belonging to world football’s governing institution.
The potential complaint is expected to focus on provisions of Swiss law concerning mismanagement.
Swiss criminal proceedings involving corporate governance can examine whether executives entrusted with managing an organization’s assets have damaged its financial interests through breaches of their duties. Whether the facts surrounding FFE satisfy that threshold would ultimately be a matter for Swiss prosecutors and, if charges were ever brought, the courts.
At present, UEFA is gathering evidence. Infantino has not been convicted or formally established to have committed criminal misconduct in connection with the proposal.
Nevertheless, the political consequences are already considerable.
UEFA announced Thursday that it was provisionally suspending its threat to boycott FIFA competitions after receiving assurances that FIFA Forward Enterprise had been permanently abandoned. But European officials emphasized that the underlying governance dispute remained unresolved and said they had been authorized unanimously to pursue political, institutional and legal options.
UEFA is also demanding an independent external investigation, arguing that FIFA cannot credibly conduct an inquiry into allegations concerning its own leadership.
The dispute is rapidly becoming a battle over Infantino’s political future.
The FIFA president is expected to seek another term at the organization’s presidential election in March 2027, but opposition that once appeared fragmented is becoming increasingly organized.
European Leagues President Claudius Schaefer said this week that Infantino had “no future” at FIFA, citing what he described as a pattern of insufficient consultation and excessively centralized decision-making. European Leagues represents dozens of professional competitions across the continent.
The Norwegian Football Federation has gone further, publicly calling for Infantino to resign.
UEFA, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation have also been discussing alternative governance structures and greater cooperation as opposition to Infantino’s leadership grows.
Yet Infantino remains far from politically isolated.
Saudi Arabia publicly backed the FIFA president on Thursday, praising FIFA’s response to the controversy and calling for dialogue rather than division. The Saudi position matters because the kingdom will host the 2034 World Cup and has developed an increasingly close commercial relationship with FIFA.
Infantino also retains significant support among national federations in Africa and South America, illustrating why removing or defeating an incumbent FIFA president remains enormously difficult.
FIFA’s political system gives each of its 211 member associations one vote regardless of the size or commercial importance of the country involved. Development funding distributed by FIFA is consequently an important component of the organization’s political structure, particularly for smaller associations whose budgets depend heavily on FIFA programmes.
That reality helps explain why the Forward Enterprise controversy has become so politically sensitive.
Critics argue that a proposal offering large financial distributions to national associations shortly before a FIFA presidential election risks blurring the distinction between development funding, commercial strategy and political support.
Supporters of FIFA’s model counter that redistributing World Cup revenue toward countries with fewer financial resources is precisely one of the organization’s principal responsibilities.
Those competing interpretations are now part of a much larger struggle over who controls world football and how that power should be exercised.
For UEFA, the dispute is no longer merely about an abandoned investment plan.
It has become a test of whether FIFA’s presidency is sufficiently constrained by its Council, independent oversight mechanisms and member associations. European officials appear determined to establish whether decisions involving billions of dollars in football assets can be developed by a small leadership circle without meaningful competitive scrutiny.
For Infantino, the danger is equally substantial.
The FFE proposal itself has already collapsed. The more consequential question now is whether investigations into its creation uncover evidence that transforms a political crisis into a legal one.
UEFA’s decision to pursue documents in the United States suggests that Europe’s football leadership has no intention of allowing the controversy simply to disappear with the cancellation of the transaction.
What began as an ambitious attempt to bring private capital into FIFA’s commercial empire has instead become one of the most serious challenges to Infantino’s authority since he took control of world football in 2016.
The World Cup sale is dead.
The battle over who authorized it, how it was valued and whether FIFA’s leadership acted properly may only be beginning.
