The schism at the heart of football has reached a new level with reports UEFA are preparing to file a ‘criminal mismanagement’ complaint against FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Multiple sources including the Wall Street Journal, BBC Sport, Times and Telegraph all confirm that UEFA submitted documents to court requesting access to evidence and documents for use in legal proceedings in Switzerland.
The issue remains that controversial plan to sell a 20 per cent stake in football tournaments for $4.2 billion, which the documents claim was an “absurdly low” figure.
UEFA take legal action against FIFA
“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,” states the UEFA application.
“Infantino pushed the plan through internal FIFA approval only days earlier at a hastily convened meeting where a limited number of FIFA’s management officials and employees – some of whom had never heard of the plan – were given mere hours to sign off on an unprecedented multi-billion dollar scheme.”
It went on to warn that the figure of $4.2 billion raised further questions, seeing as this was “neither the product of an open, competitive auction, nor tested by any independent valuer.”
The legal proceedings would be against both FIFA and their embattled President Infantino, who backed down on the plan to sell shares of the competitions, but is now clinging on to his job.
Italy became the latest Federation to formally withdraw their support for Infantino’s candidacy in the next Presidential election for FIFA, releasing a statement confirming this on Wednesday.
“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,” the application confirms.
“The secretive structuring, valuation, financing, and marketing inflicted direct and concrete injury on FIFA’s reputation, governance authority, and commercial relationships to the detriment of FIFA as well as its 211 members, including UEFA’s 55 member associations.”
