Anyone who interpreted Uefa’s decision to withdraw a proposed boycott of Fifa competitions, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday, as a backward step in the attempt to remove Gianni Infantino as Fifa’s president has been quickly disabused of that notion.
In a stunning development that overshadowed one of the biggest days in the European football calendar as national football federation and club executives gathered for the Champions League draw in Monte Carlo, Uefa announced it was preparing to make a legal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland alleging “criminal mismanagement” for his role in the failed World Cup sell-off plan.
Uefa, having removed the immediate pressure on Fifa on one front by permitting European teams to play in next month’s Under-20 Women’s World Cup and October’s senior Women’s World Cup qualifiers , has dramatically increased the stakes on another.
The first step in that legal process is seeking disclosure in the United States of documents relating to the abandoned Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, which Uefa described in a 56-page document sent to three US courts as having an “absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20bn” (£14.7bn).
From the moment it became clear Infantino would not resign after withdrawing the FFE plan four days after it became public, Uefa has been pursuing the valuation issue, which if the sale had progressed would have enabled Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital to buy 21% of future Fifa revenues in perpetuity for $4.2bn.
The Guardian revealed on 6 August that Uefa was commissioning an independent valuation of FFE amid concerns Infantino was planning to sell off football’s crown jewel on the cheap, a feeling exacerbated by the fact Fifa’s sales deck did not contain any information on the valuation process or evidence of a competitive tender.
As one source who questioned Fifa’s valuation said this month: “We need to find out if they were selling the World Cup at a knockdown price.” The intention to bring a criminal complaint is the logical extension of this process.
Even the most cursory of inquiries over the past few weeks vindicated Uefa’s concerns. Fifa’s revenue for the four-year cycle that culminated in this summer’s World Cup were $15bn, leading market analysts to suggest that $20bn was a low valuation, particularly as the proposal did not appear to include provisions to prevent expansion and the creation of new tournaments.
Kushner’s subsequent purchase of the LA Lakers with the former Disney chief Bob Iger for $12.5bn further convinced Uefa that Thrive Capital had been given a sweetheart deal by Infantino, a conviction underlined by its suspicion that Infantino was lining up a lucrative role worth tens of millions of pounds a year as FFE’s chair after standing down as Fifa’s president, which he plans to do in 2031 if he wins a further, final term.
Infantino’s determination to cling to office, demonstrated by his decision to enter campaign mode by attending a meeting of the Caribbean Football Union last weekend in the Dominican Republic where, as the Guardian revealed, he suddenly approved several funding projects, emboldened Uefa further.
Uefa has taken the legal route after being thwarted in numerous requests to Fifa to disclose documents. It has made court filings in New York, Florida and Colorado to obtain papers it may submit to Swiss courts seeking criminal charges.
Just as significant as the attempt to take Infantino to court in his adopted country is Uefa’s attempt to rally Fifa members behind it in its attempt to unseat him via March’s presidential election.
For all Uefa’s public bullishness that Infantino’s race is run, several senior figures there and among its allies at Concacaf – the North and Central American and Caribbean confederation – have admitted concerns to the Guardian that they are struggling to get many member associations outside Europe to turn against him.
Over the past few weeks several FAs have privately indicated it may take evidence of criminal activity, or at least proof that Infantino would have been personally enriched by the FFE venture, for them to abandon him.
Even those with a brief knowledge of Fifa’s history would agree that the rebels concerned about momentum to unseat Infantino stalling have a point. Although he loves to paint the world governing body as the ultimate democracy underpinned by a one-member, one-vote system, the reality is anything but. Although elections are held every four years there have been only three permanent presidents in the past 52 years, and the last to leave office after a vote was England’s Sir Stanley Rous in 1974.
Rous’s conqueror, the Brazilian João Havelange, resigned after 24 years and was later found to have accepted bribes related the sale of media rights by a Fifa ethics committee. His successor, Sepp Blatter, stood down after winning five elections in the midst of an FBI investigation in 2015, which has resulted in more than 20 criminal convictions in the US and could lead to more.
Any hope among the rebels that the Swiss authorities will come to their aid and bring Infantino to court should be tempered by those authorities’ long history of turning a blind eye to Fifa corruption, which meant intervention from the FBI was required to expose and punish it.
