It took a written legal warning from UEFA to get Arsène Wenger talking. One day after Europe's governing body sent him a formal notice threatening "legal action, arbitration, and/or regulatory complaints," the former Arsenal manager broke a full week of silence on FIFA's collapsed plan to sell off shares in the World Cup.
"I was not involved in this strategic plan and first became aware of the project through media reports," Wenger said in a statement released Tuesday. Convenient timing — but the quote itself matters. He's on record, clearly, and the distancing is deliberate.
What the scheme actually was
FIFA, under Gianni Infantino, had quietly drawn up plans to create a subsidiary company that would control the commercial rights of future World Cups and sell roughly 20% of its shares to private investors. UEFA called it "selling the soul" of the game. Almost every national association said they first heard about it through the press — not through FIFA's own channels. That lack of process infuriated confederations as much as the proposal itself.
Wenger's position at FIFA is Chief of Global Football Development — overseeing data analysis, an online training centre, 60 youth academies across 60 countries, and youth competitions worldwide. Nothing to do with governance or commercial strategy, he was at pains to explain. Given how radioactive this scheme has become, you can understand why.
Infantino's position looks shakier by the day
The FIFA president had collected over 200 letters of support from member associations ahead of the planned presidential elections on March 17, 2027. Those declarations are now being withdrawn and replaced with legal warnings — a remarkable reversal that reframes what those elections might look like. Wenger pointedly refused to say whether Infantino should keep his job.
Several FIFA employees have already begun to turn on Infantino publicly. Wenger stopped short of that, but his statement — timed precisely to follow UEFA's legal notice — draws a clear line between himself and a president whose grip on the organisation is visibly loosening.
"The decision to withdraw the project was absolutely necessary and beyond question," Wenger added, "because I firmly believe in an independent FIFA that serves our game with commitment, transparency and integrity."
Whether he still believes the man running FIFA shares those values is a question he declined to answer.
