UEFA prepares Swiss criminal complaint against Gianni Infantino over World Cup sale

UEFA is seeking to launch criminal proceedings against FIFA president Gianni Infantino over a controversial plan to sell stakes in the organisation's biggest competitions to private investors.

The European governing body has applied to a court in Florida for access to documents and other evidence that could be used in a criminal case in Switzerland against Infantino and FIFA.

The proposed deal, which has now been abandoned, was centred on FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), a new company that would have controlled the commercial rights to the men's and women's World Cups and the Club World Cup.

UEFA alleges that Infantino and a small group around him developed the plan in secret and that the proposed structure would have benefited private investors and Infantino at FIFA's expense.

UEFA claims Infantino pushed the proposal through FIFA's internal approval process shortly before it was announced. The application says a meeting was held at



short notice, with only a limited number of FIFA officials and employees involved. Some of them, UEFA alleges, had not heard about the proposal before the meeting and were given only a few hours to approve it.

UEFA also claims that the FIFA Council, the continental confederations and FIFA's 211 member associations were not consulted.

The organisation says the plan had been in development for more than a year before Infantino announced it on July 28, 2026. The proposed investment has also come under scrutiny because of its valuation. UEFA says investors would have acquired a permanent financial interest in FIFA's commercial arm for $4.2bn.

According to the application, that price implied an enterprise value of around $20bn. UEFA argues that the valuation was never tested through an open bidding process or independently verified.

The organisation says the proposed terms could have resulted in FIFA's commercial assets being sold too cheaply.