UEFA on Thursday commenced legal action in three states against FIFA, president Gianni Infantino, and others involved in the now-withdrawn $20 billion FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal to sell minority stakes in the World Cup and its other competitions.
UEFA is seeking information through the discovery process from FIFA, Mr Infantino, Thrive Capital, founded by Josh Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as former Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei, before heading to authorities in Switzerland to file criminal charges against Mr Infantino and other FIFA officials.
UEFA is filing in the Southern District of New York, the Southern District of Florida, and the District of Colorado in the United States, which the documents called re ex parte applications.
UEFA is taking a three-pronged approach because FIFA has an office in Miami, while Thrive Capital is based in New York, and Maffei is based in Colorado.
According to each of the documents, “UEFA and other interested parties are preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino and possibly other FIFA officials and advisors for criminal mismanagement… arising out of the secretive structuring, valuation, financing, and marketing” of FIFA Forward Enterprise.
The filings revealed that although Mr Kushner and Mr Maffei’s firms are not anticipated defendants in an eventual Swiss criminal case, UEFA does not consider them blameless.
UEFA called the FFE 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 also stated in the filing that it seeks documents about the formation of FFE, communications between stakeholders, the pitch deck given to investors, valuation models, and other materials, while also demanding to understand how FIFA reached what it called an “absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20 billion”.
The withdrawn $20 billion proposal included $4.2 billion from outside investors, with Thrive Eternal as the lead and only listed investor. In the filing, UEFA claims the $4.2 billion figure is a “fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit”.
UEFA condemned Mr Infantino’s relationship with Mr Trump, his reported use of FIFA funds for personal items, and his plan to run for a fourth term as FIFA president after saying his first three years after taking over from Sepp Blatter didn’t count toward term limits.
UEFA threatened to boycott all FIFA tournaments before FIFA formally announced the proposal, and even after withdrawing it on July 31, demanded the resignation of the world football governing body’s leadership.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, in a joint statement with football confederations of North America and Asia, accused Mr Infantino of “deception”, while some member national football associations also withdrew their support for Mr Infantino ahead of the March 2027 FIFA presidential elections.