UEFA is preparing criminal legal proceedings against FIFA President Gianni Infantino for alleged criminal mismanagement related to a failed plan to sell stakes in World Cup commercial rights to private investors [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].
The plan involved creating a FIFA subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to hold commercial rights to the men's and women's World Cups and the Club World Cup. Private investors would buy roughly 20% stakes in FFE for approximately $4.2 billion [1, 10, 2, 3, 11, 4, 12, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].
Infantino and a small group of advisers and investors secretly developed the plan over more than a year. They bypassed FIFA's normal governance processes, excluding the FIFA Council, regional confederations, and all 211 member associations from consultation [1, 10, 2, 11, 4, 12, 6, 9]. UEFA's legal filing noted the plan was pushed through a hastily convened internal approval meeting where some officials were unaware of the details and had only hours to approve the multibillion-dollar scheme [2].
UEFA described the $4.2 billion price for the 20% stake as "fraudulently off-market" and an "absurdly low enterprise value" of about $20 billion for FFE. It alleges the valuation greatly undervalued FIFA's commercial rights [4, 12, 5, 7, 9]. One anonymous source said, "We need to find out if they were selling the World Cup at a knockdown price" [5].
Key investors included Thrive Capital Management, founded by Joshua Kushner as the anchor investor, with Greg Maffei, former Liberty Media CEO, serving as a key adviser on the deal [4, 12, 7, 8, 9].
Infantino made the plan public on July 28, 2026, but he dropped it by August 1 amid backlash from FIFA member associations and global soccer leaders including UEFA [1, 2, 12, 5, 7].
On August 3, UEFA threatened legal action and warned FIFA against hiding evidence. Today, UEFA filed applications in multiple U.S. federal courts — Manhattan, Florida, Colorado — seeking document and testimony discovery from FIFA and related investors. These materials will support UEFA’s planned criminal complaint in Switzerland under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code against Infantino and potentially other officials for criminal mismanagement [10, 3, 11, 12, 6, 7, 8, 9].
UEFA claims Infantino aimed to enrich himself and a close group of advisers and investors at FIFA's expense. A legal filing stated, "Those investors stood to acquire a permanent financial interest in FIFA’s commercial arm at a fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit" [1, 2, 5, 7].
