UEFA declared on Saturday that FIFA president Gianni Infantino had lost its confidence and that of many other members of the football family, after FIFA abandoned a plan to open a new commercial structure to private investors.
The European confederation said it could not continue in circumstances where secret manoeuvres were being conducted at a frantic pace, orchestrated by faceless individuals whose interest in the sport was doubtful. UEFA added that those responsible needed to be identified and held accountable.
UEFA welcomed the withdrawal of the proposal, which Infantino had announced a few hours earlier, but used the moment to deliver a pointed public attack on his leadership.
The scrapped proposal
FIFA announced in the early hours of Saturday morning that it was dropping the plan after several days of sharp criticism from multiple confederations, with UEFA leading the opposition. The project had been presented only days earlier as a way to strengthen funding for football development.
Infantino said he had listened carefully to all points of view and that it had become clear the project had created divisions that were no longer in the interest of the original objective. He said the proposal would therefore not go forward.
The plan had envisaged the creation of a body called FIFA Forward Entreprise, which would have managed FIFA’s commercial and events activities. FIFA had sought to sell up to 20 percent of that structure to private investors to raise as much as 4.2 billion dollars, with the aim of bringing total funding for football development to 10 billion dollars over the next four years.
Pressure on Infantino
The dispute carries added weight because FIFA’s presidential election is scheduled for March 2027, and Infantino is currently the only declared candidate for his own succession. The public break with UEFA, one of the most powerful voices in global football, deepens the political pressure on him ahead of that vote.
UEFA’s statement framed the episode not merely as a policy disagreement but as a question of trust and governance, calling for accountability from those who designed and pushed the proposal.
