UEFA Preparing Criminal Legal Action against Infantino

UEFA is preparing criminal legal proceedings against FIFA President Gianni Infantino over the now scrapped plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup and its other competitions to private investors. Documents seen by BBC Sport show an application has been made by European football’s governing body requesting access to evidence and documents for use in proceedings in Switzerland against the embattled president himself, who UEFA accuses of “criminal mismanagement”. UEFA also says it is considering pursuing criminal action against other FIFA officials. Shortly after this summer’s World Cup, Infantino proposed creating a new company, FIF Forward Enterprise (FFE), which would have sold off stakes in FIFA’s football competitions to private investors. The plan was scrapped after widespread backlash. In the application for evidence, UEFA said: “In truth, it was a vehicle for Infantino and that small circle to acquire a permanent stake in and otherwise profit from FIFA’s most valuable assets to the detriment of FIFA, its members, and other parties within the football family,” UEFA’s application says. “Infantino pushed the plan through internal FIFA approval only days earlier at a hastily convened meeting where a limited number of FIFA’s management officials and employees – some of whom had never heard of the plan – were given mere hours to sign off on an unprecedented multi-billion dollar scheme.” Key figures at UEFA and in European football met on Thursday in Monaco before the Champions League draw, where Infantino’s status was one item on the agenda. A statement sent to the media by UEFA said: “Those present unanimously mandated the UEFA president and administration to pursue every available institutional, political and legal avenue necessary to secure fundamental reform, restore proper limits on presidential authority and ensure that FIFA is once again governed as an institution – not around one individual.” BBC Sport has approached Infantino and FIFA for comment UEFA claims that the valuation of the stakes to be sold were not independently verified and would have been offered too cheaply, calling the proposed sale “a fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit”. The application adds: “Under the terms Infantino announced, those investors stood to acquire a permanent financial interest in FIFA’s commercial arm for $4.2bn, implying an absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20bn, a figure that was neither the product of an open, competitive auction, nor tested by any independent valuer.” In the application, UEFA is applying to a court in Florida to attempt to access files held by two FIFA businesses – FIFA Americas and FWC2026 – to be used to pursue the criminal charges in Switzerland at a later stage. The two businesses are based in Florida.