FIFA Accuses UEFA of ‘Misinformation Campaign’ as Investment Row Reaches Court

FIFA has accused UEFA of running a “misinformation campaign” against Gianni Infantino as the fallout from its abandoned plan to bring private investment into its commercial operations reaches the US federal courts.

UEFA is seeking documents and testimony that could be used in a potential criminal complaint in Switzerland concerning Infantino and potentially other FIFA officials and advisers. Nobody has been charged, no Swiss criminal complaint has yet been filed and the American courts aren’t being asked to decide whether anybody committed an offence. They’re being asked whether UEFA can obtain evidence held in the United States as it considers its next move.

FIFA believes there is another motive behind it.

UEFA’s actions form part of a “misinformation campaign” intended to damage Infantino ahead of the FIFA presidential election in March 2027, FIFA alleges.

The row can be traced back to FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), which managed an impressively short life for something still causing this much trouble. Announced in July, it would have created a FIFA-controlled commercial subsidiary around operations connected to competitions including the men’s and women’s World Cups and Club World Cup. An investor group led by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital was expected to invest up to $4.2 billion for a minority stake, with JPMorgan advising on the proposal.

There was plenty in it for FIFA’s 211 member associations. They could receive an optional immediate $20 million, while regular Forward development funding was proposed to increase from the currently budgeted $8 million per association for 2027-30 to $20 million. Convincing football associations that more money might be nice wasn’t much of an obstacle. Convincing the confederations that private investors needed to be involved proved considerably harder.

UEFA alleges the project was developed without proper consultation and undervalued FIFA’s commercial assets. Concacaf said it only became aware of the proposal through media reports, while the Asian Football Confederation also opposed it. With three confederations against the plan, FIFA withdrew FFE, but almost everything they were arguing about has carried on without it.

That includes the numbers. UEFA has referred to a proposed $20 billion equity valuation, while FIFA says the transaction contemplated an enterprise value above $30 billion. Put them side by side and it looks like somebody has misplaced $10 billion. They are, however, different measures. Equity value concerns the value attributable to shareholders, while enterprise value also accounts for the company’s wider financing structure and debt. FIFA says UEFA has wrongly presented the figures as equivalent. UEFA’s concern is that FIFA’s commercial rights were being undervalued in the first place.

The debate has since moved beyond what those rights might be worth to whether FIFA needed private money to fund its plans at all.

Its audited accounts show reserves of $2.699 billion at the end of 2025, with 73 per cent of its $9.48 billion in assets held in cash and financial assets. FIFA also expects revenue across the 2023-26 cycle to exceed its $13 billion budget, with the expanded 2026 World Cup providing the biggest payday.

UEFA and Concacaf project FIFA’s reserves could reach around $6 billion by the end of 2026. Rather than bringing investors into FIFA’s commercial operations, they want at least $10 million distributed to each of the 211 member associations during 2027-30, around $2.1 billion altogether. Their calculations suggest FIFA could do that and still keep reserves above $1.5 billion.

Infantino hasn’t accepted those figures, but he has ordered FIFA’s administration to examine them and asked the confederations to provide their financial models and supporting information.

It means a plan originally designed to find billions more for football has instead opened an argument about the billions FIFA already has, how much more it might make and who should get it.

FFE lasted a matter of days. Three months later, its proposed investors are being dragged into US discovery proceedings, FIFA and UEFA are trading allegations and 211 associations are waiting to find out whether considerably more money could be coming their way.

On 15 October, the FIFA Council is due to receive the first recommendations on that funding proposal.

The company FIFA wanted to create is already gone. The fight over its money has barely started.