FIFA’s abandoned commercial deal has unleashed a battle that reaches far beyond one controversial transaction. With UEFA seeking evidence through US courts and possible criminal proceedings, and European federations mobilising politically, Gianni Infantino’s grip on world football faces its toughest test.
By Sports Reporter
The most severe existential crisis in modern sports administration has erupted into open legal and political warfare across global football.
What began as internal friction over a covert proposal to privatise elements of the FIFA World Cup has transformed into formal criminal filings, cross-border subpoenas and calls for an immediate overhaul of the governing body’s command structure.
At the centre of the storm is FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who faces an unprecedented challenge to his ten-year tenure after the collapse of a secret, year-long negotiation to establish FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE).
The secret deal
Under the FFE framework, FIFA aimed to spin off its media, broadcasting, sponsorship and ticketing operations into a commercial subsidiary valued at $20 billion.
Anchor backing was slated to come from Thrive Eternal, an investment vehicle affiliated with Thrive Capital and controlled by Joshua Kushner.
The proposed transaction would have seen Kushner’s group acquire a 20% non-controlling stake in FIFA’s core commercial assets for $4.2 billion.
To secure the necessary support across global football, Infantino offered one-off cash distributions of up to $20 million to each of FIFA’s 211 member federations.
The revelation of the deal triggered immediate outrage from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and several continental bodies, which accused Infantino of bypassing the FIFA Council to negotiate away the game’s long-term commercial assets without an open tender or independent valuation.
Facing explicit threats of a European tournament boycott, FIFA permanently withdrew the proposal.
The withdrawal of the commercial proposal, however, has done little to stem the backlash. UEFA has since taken its campaign to court, seeking documents and testimony in the United States as it prepares a potential criminal complaint in Switzerland.
Criminal mismanagement filings
In court documents filed in US federal courts in New York, Florida and Colorado, UEFA attorneys confirmed they are preparing formal legal proceedings in Switzerland under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code, targeting Infantino for alleged criminal mismanagement.
The legal filings allege that the $4.2 billion purchase price represented a “fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit”, asserting that an independent valuation of FIFA’s commercial rights would easily exceed $30 billion.
UEFA’s filings assert: “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.”
UEFA’s decision to pursue evidence through the US courts underlines the seriousness of the confrontation.
Through Section 1782 discovery applications in the United States, UEFA is seeking to compel Thrive Capital, Joshua Kushner and transaction advisers – including former Liberty Media chief executive Greg Maffei – to surrender internal communications, valuation models and correspondence regarding the structure of FFE.
The legal offensive represents a significant escalation in the dispute. Rather than relying solely on political pressure, UEFA is seeking access to the underlying records that could illuminate how the proposed transaction was conceived, valued and negotiated.
Breaking weeks of silence following the deal’s collapse, Thrive Capital founder Joshua Kushner acknowledged the fallout in a statement, writing that his firm: “Failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football… [and] would not have gotten involved [had we known how the deal would unfold].”
Kushner’s admission provides a striking insight into the political miscalculation surrounding the proposal.
The venture capital firm had entered one of the most politically charged institutions in international sport and discovered that the commercial logic of the transaction could not be separated from the politics of football.
The drive for governance reform
The legal manoeuvres have coincided with an escalating political campaign to unseat Infantino ahead of the March 2027 FIFA presidential election.
The Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) publicly withdrew its backing for Infantino, announcing plans to host an International Summit on the Future of FIFA in Amsterdam aimed at restructuring global football governance.
The KNVB explicitly stated that Infantino would be barred from participating.
In an official release, the Dutch federation noted: “We see too much power concentrated around the FIFA president… A new president is not enough.”
The statement goes beyond opposition to one individual. It represents a challenge to the concentration of authority that has characterised Infantino’s presidency and suggests that sections of European football want structural changes extending beyond the next presidential election.
Former UEFA president Michel Platini has been even more direct: “He’s the guarantor [of the rules], he doesn’t respect them, he must go.”
Meanwhile, UEFA has paused its immediate threat to boycott international competitions, clearing European nations to compete in upcoming tournaments after receiving written guarantees that the private-equity scheme will not be revived.
That truce has not ended the political campaign against Infantino.
UEFA’s leadership has confirmed that it is actively working with partner confederations to field a unified opposition candidate before the 18 November nomination deadline.
CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani has emerged among senior administrators as a leading candidate to challenge Infantino.
The stakes are therefore considerably larger than the fate of a failed commercial transaction. The battle is becoming a referendum on the way FIFA is governed, the concentration of presidential power and the extent to which the organisation’s enormous commercial assets can be opened to private investors.
Geopolitical fractures
Despite mounting pressure in Europe and North America, Infantino retains substantial support among smaller member associations, relying on FIFA’s one-member, one-vote electoral system.
That electoral arithmetic remains one of Infantino’s greatest sources of political strength.
The governing structure gives every national association the same formal vote, regardless of the size of its football economy or the global influence of its domestic game.
The FIFA president has embarked on regional tours across the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) to reaffirm local development funding.
Furthermore, six Arab football federations — including 2030 World Cup co-host Morocco, Qatar and Egypt — issued a joint declaration reaffirming their support for Infantino’s leadership, signalling a deep geographical divide over the future administration of the global game.
The divide exposes the central political reality confronting Infantino’s opponents. Removing a FIFA president requires more than winning the argument in Europe. It requires assembling a coalition capable of overcoming the support Infantino has cultivated across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East and other regions that have benefited from FIFA’s development funding.
For Infantino, the one-member, one-vote system provides a formidable political shield. For his opponents, it means that allegations surrounding the FFE proposal must ultimately be converted into votes if they are to produce a change at the top.
With discovery applications proceeding through US courts and formal filings pending in Bern and Zurich, the confrontation has entered a critical phase in which voting arithmetic and judicial scrutiny could determine the outcome.
The collapse of FFE has therefore not closed the controversy. It has opened a far more consequential battle over who controls FIFA, who benefits from its commercial empire and whether the organisation can continue to operate with so much power concentrated in the hands of one president.