FIFA isn't pulling punches. In a filing to a US federal court, world football's governing body accused UEFA of running a "misinformation campaign" designed not to seek justice, but to sabotage Gianni Infantino's reelection campaign ahead of the March vote.
The dispute stems from FIFA's now-scrapped FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan — a proposal that would have transferred World Cup commercial rights into a private subsidiary. UEFA wants a US court to allow it to gather testimony and documents from two Florida-based FIFA entities to support a planned criminal complaint in Switzerland against Infantino. FIFA's response? Reject it, and see it for what it is.
The numbers at the heart of the fight
UEFA claimed investors would have paid $4.2 billion for a stake in FFE, valuing the business at around $20 billion — a figure it argues significantly undervalued FIFA's commercial rights and was never tested by an independent valuer. FIFA fired back that UEFA was conflating equity value with enterprise value, pointing out that FFE's total enterprise value was "well over $30 billion" — more than twice the equity figure UEFA was citing.
That's not a minor accounting quibble. If FIFA's version is accurate, UEFA's core legal argument looks shaky before it even reaches a Swiss courtroom.
FIFA also flatly denied that Infantino sought personal gain from the proposal, insisting it was always subject to approval by member associations and the FIFA Council. "UEFA's suggestions that Mr. Infantino violated any law or ethical principle are categorically without merit," the filing states.
Politics dressed up as due process
The FFE plan collapsed in July after opposition from UEFA, CONCACAF, and the Asian Football Confederation — all citing a lack of consultation. That's a legitimate governance concern. But FIFA's argument is that UEFA has since weaponised the dispute, filing four separate legal applications just months before the presidential election.
Infantino responded last week by writing to all 211 member associations proposing an independent review of FIFA's decision-making processes — a concession that suggests even he knows the governance criticism has some bite.
UEFA has not commented. The Florida court still has to rule on whether discovery proceeds. Whatever it decides, the back-channel war between football's two most powerful institutions is now being fought on American soil — which tells you everything about how far this has escalated.
