UEFA has welcomed FIFA’s decision to scrap a plan to sell a stake in the commercial rights of its competitions, including the World Cup, to private investors, but coupled the announcement with a sharp public condemnation of FIFA President Gianni Infantino and a demand that those responsible for the scheme be identified and held to account.
The governing body released a detailed statement within hours of Infantino announcing he was withdrawing the proposal. UEFA, which had opposed the plan from the outset with the backing of all 55 of its member associations, said it no longer extends even minimal trust to the current FIFA president. The organisation accused him of having failed to meet his commitments on transparency and said it would work immediately with other confederations and federations around the world to propose a new model for distributing resources through the FIFA Forward programme.
Unanimous rejection
The proposal had been unanimously rejected by UEFA’s member associations, as well as by many other federations and confederations of every size around the world whose mission, according to UEFA, is to protect football. The governing body thanked fans, leagues, clubs, players, federations, confederations, prime ministers, heads of state and commentators who had shown Infantino that football was not for sale.
UEFA said football governance could not continue in the fashion the scheme had revealed, with secret plans rushed through express procedures, drawn up by anonymous individuals, and of questionable benefit to the sport. It demanded that those responsible be identified and called to account.
Review and consequences
UEFA said it would work with its member federations, in close cooperation with the other confederations, over the coming days and weeks to examine how the situation had reached this point and draw up a plan ensuring nothing similar could happen again. The review, it said, should be thorough and substantive, and no option should be excluded. UEFA added that FIFA’s current leadership had lost not only UEFA’s trust but also the confidence of many other members of the football family.
The statement turned specifically to Infantino’s record set against pledges he made when seeking the votes of FIFA member associations ahead of his election as president in 2016. At that time, Infantino said transparency was essential and that he had spent the previous 15 years of his career practicing it at UEFA. He told the assembled federation representatives that member associations should be involved in FIFA’s daily life. He also told those gathered that FIFA’s money was their money, not the president’s, and that it must serve the development of football and nothing else.
UEFA said Infantino had failed on both counts. The deal he devised and attempted to impose was described as hasty, conducted behind closed doors and the opposite of transparent. With FIFA’s reserves exceeding five billion dollars, UEFA also argued that Infantino had failed to deploy the federations’ money for the benefit of the sport.
A new way forward
Looking ahead, UEFA said it would begin working immediately with partners and stakeholders at every level of the game around the world to propose a fresh approach to distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward programme.
UEFA argued that money currently sitting idle in FIFA’s bank accounts should be put to work to give grassroots football and the sport as a whole the impetus it needs across each of FIFA’s 211 member countries. Achieving this, it added, does not require selling off the family silver.
UEFA closed by describing the outcome as a victory for the whole of football, while insisting it should not be viewed as the end of the matter. The specific proposal had been withdrawn, it said, but the work of restoring trust in FIFA had only just begun.
