FIFA accuses UEFA of ‘smear campaign’ against its president Gianni Infantino

FIFA has accused UEFA of launching a “smear campaign” against Gianni Infantino and the organisation after European football’s governing body threatened to launch “criminal proceedings” against the embattled FIFA president.

On August 28, UEFA, in a legal document filed in the U.S. and seen by The Athletic, alleged that Infantino was “promoting” a “fraudulently off-market price for his own benefit” when proposing to sell a 20 per cent stake in FIFA’s commercial and event operations for $4.2billion (£3.1bn)

This was part of the now-abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, which, if approved by the 211 member associations, would have seen Thrive Eternal — a U.S. investment fund run by Joshua Kushner — purchase a stake in the men’s and women’s World Cup, as well as other FIFA competitions.

UEFA made the request for the disclosure of documents in advance of potentially launching “criminal proceedings” against Infantino in Switzerland over the FFE plan, as well as their lawyers saying the $4.2bn valuation was “absurdly low” and not “the product of an open, competitive auction.”

However, FIFA has now responded to UEFA’s legal filing by lodging a motion to intervene, where they have asked for the granting of access to documents to be deferred or for the application to be opposed altogether.

“While these applications are styled as legal pleadings with captions and docket numbers, they are little more than press releases in further support of UEFA’s smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership,” FIFA’s filing, lodged in New York on Tuesday and seen by The Athletic, states.

“That is clear from UEFA’s decision to alert the media before filing these applications, from the countless paragraphs of the application supported only by references to press reports (many of which quote UEFA), and from the fact that UEFA’s application suffers from a fundamental defect: UEFA seeks discovery in aid of a foreign criminal proceeding that does not exist and that UEFA admittedly lacks the authority to initiate.”

World football’s governing body also accused UEFA of deliberately blocking FFE, which included a threat for all European national teams to boycott future FIFA competitions if the plan was not dropped, in an attempt to ensure the proposal did not get off the ground.

“Rather than participate in that democratic process, UEFA issued a press release —  the beginning of a weeks-long smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership,” the filing reads. “UEFA accused FIFA of ‘governance by intimidation’ and characterized FFE as an ‘act of coercion.’”

FIFA alleges that UEFA’s “economic motivation” to ensure FFE did not see the light of day was “to prevent smaller countries from having the financial strength to compete with the European elite.”

“If soccer is strengthened in the developing world, global competition increases, which ultimately reduces UEFA’s market power and provides more competition for its flagship tournaments,” the filing says.

“By raising funds to allow some of FIFA’s smaller member associations to better develop soccer, FFE would lead to more players from those nations choosing to represent their countries of origin and playing in their home leagues rather than playing abroad.

“All of this would erode UEFA’s dominance over other regions of the world.”

In the filing, FIFA also dismissed the notion that UEFA would be able to bring criminal action against Infantino in Switzerland.

“UEFA instead seeks to recast what is fundamentally an arbitral dispute with FIFA as a basis for “contemplated Swiss criminal proceedings” while simultaneously acknowledging that it lacks authority to commence any such criminal proceedings,” the filing adds.

UEFA has been approached for comment.

It is not just Infantino who has been the subject of UEFA’s request for disclosure. Identical legal filings were also lodged against Thrive, Joshua Kushner and JPMorgan in New York City, as well as Bann Ventures and Greg Maffei, its CEO, in Colorado.

JPMorgan and Bann Ventures were set to work alongside FIFA on the FFE project and were named by FIFA in its July 28 release announcing the plans.

In response to UEFA’s request for the disclosure of documents, and commenting for the first time since the FFE fallout, Kushner released a statement on Monday to say Thrive “failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football” and added “we would not have gotten involved” in the plan had they known “what this would devolve into.”