September 4: FIFA has blasted UEFA over its reaction to the FIFA Football Enterprise debacle, describing the confederation’s legal threat against the world governing body and its president Gianni Infantino as a “smear campaign”
FIFA has filed a motion against UEFA’s discovery request and its lawyers criticized the European governing body. The motion, drafted by H. Christopher Boehning of Linklaters, said: “Although these applications are styled as legal statements with subtitles and file numbers, they are little more than press releases in further support of UEFA’s smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership.
“This is clear from UEFA’s decision to alert the media before making these requests, from the countless paragraphs of the request supported only by references to press reports (many of which quote UEFA) and from the fact that UEFA’s request suffers from a fundamental flaw: UEFA is seeking discovery in favor of a foreign criminal proceeding that does not exist and that UEFA admittedly does not have the authority to initiate.
“FIFA USA requests that the Court allow it to oppose the application no later than September 30, 2026.” The motion filed in New York City said a Florida court had granted FIFA’s motion to oppose the request.
UEFA last week sought subpoenas from US courts, claiming discovery was needed to prepare possible criminal charges against FIFA president Gianni Infantino in Switzerland over the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme. The filing directed documents and communications from FIFA, as well as Joshua Kushner and the investment firm he oversees, Thrive Capital, which had lined up as FFE’s lead investor.
FIFA and Linklaters wrote: “Instead of engaging in this democratic process, UEFA issued a press release – the start of a week-long smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership.
“UEFA’s economic motivation was to prevent smaller countries from having the financial strength to compete with Europe’s elite. If football gets stronger in the developing world, global competition increases, which ultimately reduces UEFA’s market power and provides more competition for its flagship tournaments.
“By raising funds to enable some of FIFA’s smaller member associations to better develop football, the FFE would lead to more players from these nations choosing to represent their home countries and play in their home leagues rather than playing abroad. All of this would erode UEFA’s dominance over other regions of the world.”
They referred to Joshua Kushner’s statement arguing that “money in football has historically been concentrated in a small group of countries” and Samuel Eto’o, the controversial FECAFOOT president who has backed Infantino.
The FIFA president has come under constant pressure from UEFA even after abandoning his World Cup liquidation plans, but Infantino has so far resisted calls to resign.
The European confederation will organize a meeting of its executive committee in Greece in the second week of September.
Contact the writer of this story, Samindra Kunti, at (email protected)
