UEFA is moving toward criminal proceedings against FIFA president Gianni Infantino in Switzerland over his abandoned plan to sell stakes in the World Cup and FIFA’s other competitions to private investors, accusing him of “criminal mismanagement”.
European football’s governing body has applied to a court in Florida for access to evidence and documents held by two FIFA businesses, FIFA Americas and FWC2026, according to filings seen by BBC Sport and carried by the Daily Mirror.
The application is a preparatory step rather than a filed criminal case. UEFA’s own wording is that it and “other interested parties are preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino and possibly other FIFA officials and advisors for criminal mismanagement”.
The allegations
Infantino announced on July 28 that the commercial rights to the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup would be moved into a new subsidiary, FIFA Forward Enterprise. UEFA says this was done without consulting the FIFA Council, the confederations or any of FIFA’s 211 member associations.
UEFA alleges the structure was designed to enrich Infantino and a small group of investors. “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,” the application states.
It further claims Infantino “pushed the plan through internal FIFA approval only days earlier at a hastily convened meeting” where some officials “had never heard of the plan” and were given “mere hours to sign off on an unprecedented multi-billion dollar scheme”.
The valuation
Central to UEFA’s case is the price. Investors were to acquire a permanent financial interest in FIFA’s commercial arm for $4.2 billion — a figure UEFA says implied “an absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20bn”, never tested by open auction or independent valuer. It calls this “a fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit”.
The plan was scrapped in early August after a backlash from UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and Concacaf. UEFA served a document preservation letter on FIFA on August 4, saying legal proceedings were “reasonably anticipated” — an escalation that has now moved from civil warning to criminal groundwork.
UEFA says its 55 member associations were potentially harmed and that it may pursue other FIFA officials.
FIFA and Infantino had not responded publicly at the time of writing.
