FIFA: UEFA is waging a smear campaign and fears the rise of developing nations

FIFA have accused UEFA of launching a "smear campaign" against them and their president, Gianni Infantino, after European football's governing body threatened to open "criminal proceedings" against the beleaguered FIFA chief, according to the newspaper The Athletic.

On 28 August, in a legal document filed in the United States, UEFA claimed Infantino was "fraudulently promoting" an "off-market price for his own personal benefit" when he proposed selling a 20% stake in FIFA's commercial and regulatory operations for 4.2 billion dollars (3.1 billion pounds sterling).

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UEFA requested the disclosure of documents in preparation for the possible opening of "criminal proceedings" against Infantino in Switzerland over his failed plan. Their lawyers said the 4.2 billion dollar valuation was "absurdly low" and was not "the product of an open and competitive auction".

"Smear campaign"

FIFA hit back at the filing with a motion to intervene, asking either for a delay in granting access to the documents or for the request to be rejected outright.

Submitted in New York last Tuesday, FIFA's filing stated: "Although these applications are framed as legal actions with titles and file numbers, they are nothing more than press statements, supporting the smear campaign UEFA is waging against FIFA and its leadership."

The filing went on: "This is clear from UEFA's decision to alert the media before submitting these applications, from the many paragraphs in the application based solely on press reports (many of which quote UEFA), and from the fact that UEFA's application suffers from a fundamental flaw: it requests disclosure to support a foreign criminal proceeding that does not exist, and UEFA itself admits that it lacks the authority to open it."

World football's governing body also accused UEFA of deliberately obstructing the FFE project. That included a threat to make every European national team boycott FIFA's upcoming tournaments if the plan was not withdrawn, an attempt to stop the project getting off the ground.

According to the document: "Instead of taking part in that democratic process, UEFA issued a press statement, at the start of a weeks-long smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership."

"Europe's motives"

FIFA claim UEFA's "economic motive" for blocking FFE was "to prevent smaller nations from having the financial power to compete with the European elite".

The filing says: "If football in the developing world is strengthened, global competition increases, which ultimately reduces UEFA's market power and provides more competition for its flagship tournaments."

It adds: "By raising funds to allow some of FIFA's smaller member associations to develop football better, FFE would have led to more players from those countries being selected to represent their home nations, and playing in their domestic leagues, instead of playing abroad. All of that would have weakened UEFA's dominance over other regions of the world."

FIFA also used the filing to reject the idea that UEFA can bring a criminal case against Infantino in Switzerland.

Infantino is not the sole subject of the disclosure request. Identical legal filings target Thrive, Joshua Kushner and JP Morgan in New York City, along with Pan Ventures and its chief executive Greg Maffei in Colorado.

JP Morgan and Pan Ventures were due to work alongside FIFA on the FFE project. FIFA named them in the statement announcing the plans on 28 July.

Kushner broke his silence on the FFE fallout last Monday, responding to UEFA's disclosure request with a statement of his own. Thrive "did not appreciate the political dynamics of global football", he said, adding: "We would not have got involved in the plan" had we known "what it would turn into".

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