FIFA and UEFA turn a rights dispute into an election fight

What began as a dispute over World Cup commercial rights has now become something more familiar in football: a fight over process, power and who gets to accuse whom of bad faith. FIFA says UEFA is not simply challenging a business proposal. It is, in FIFA’s view, trying to shape the presidential election in which Gianni Infantino is seeking a fourth term.

The immediate trigger is FIFA Forward Enterprise, a proposal that would have moved World Cup commercial rights into a subsidiary. UEFA asked a US federal court in the Southern District of Florida for permission to obtain testimony and documents for use in a planned criminal complaint in Switzerland against Infantino. FIFA wants that request rejected, arguing that UEFA’s filing contains numerous false or misleading statements about both FIFA and its president.

UEFA’s version of events is blunt. It says Infantino developed the plan in secret with a small circle of advisers and investors, bypassing the normal governance process and failing to consult the FIFA Council, regional confederations or member associations. It also says investors would have paid $4.2bn for a stake in FFE, implying a valuation of about $20bn, and argues that FIFA’s commercial rights were therefore undervalued.

FIFA counters that UEFA is mixing up equity value and enterprise value, a distinction that tends to become very popular once lawyers are involved. In its filing, FIFA says the initial equity valuation was $20bn, while the enterprise value — the full value of the business — was well over $30bn. It adds that the enterprise value was more than twice the equity value, and therefore far above what UEFA has described as fair.

FIFA also insists the proposal was not a private arrangement waiting to be slipped through unnoticed. According to its filing, the FFE plan would have needed approval from both the member associations and the FIFA Council, and would have been overseen by those bodies within FIFA. That is the sort of safeguard football officials like to cite when their projects are under pressure; the trouble, of course, is that consultation only becomes a cherished principle once people start asking why it was missing.

The project was abandoned in July after opposition from UEFA, the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football and the Asian Football Confederation over a lack of consultation. That dispute then fed broader demands for changes to FIFA’s governance. Last week, Infantino wrote to all 211 member associations proposing an independent review of the governing body’s decision-making processes.

The timing is awkward for everyone, which is why it matters. Infantino is due for re-election in March, and FIFA says UEFA’s filings are meant to influence that contest. It said the 1782 Application, along with three others, was filed just before FIFA’s election and spread misinformation about Infantino. FIFA has asked the court to reject any attempt to affect the presidential race on that basis.

On Monday, Infantino also said he was willing to discuss the distribution of millions of dollars to member associations, with the exact amounts for individual nations due to be on the agenda of the FIFA Council’s meeting on October 15. For a sport that keeps promising better governance, it is a remarkably steady habit: the same institutions, the same suspicions, and another round of legal papers pretending to be principle.

Written by Sandy van Dongen sandy.vandongen@alpineweekly.com