UEFA has declared that it has lost confidence in FIFA president Gianni Infantino despite the decision to abandon plans to sell a stake in the World Cup’s commercial operations.
European football’s governing body issued its latest rebuke on Saturday, hours after FIFA cancelled the proposed FIFA Forward Enterprise project.
The statement deepens the crisis surrounding Infantino’s leadership but does not represent a formal FIFA vote of no confidence or automatically remove him from office.
UEFA has not announced whether its 55 member associations will seek an extraordinary FIFA Congress to consider his dismissal.
Under FIFA’s statutes, 20% of its 211 national associations must request an extraordinary Congress. That means 43 countries could initiate the process and seek to place a no-confidence vote on the agenda.
UEFA alone has enough members to meet that threshold if its associations act collectively.
Prior to UEFA’s statement, Infantino had walked back the idea to sell stakes in the World Cup’s commercial operations. “Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions,” he said.
The current FIFA president said he intended to reunite the different parties and continue increasing development funding, particularly for countries requiring greater support.
The proposal would have created a subsidiary valued at approximately $20 billion to oversee FIFA’s competitions and associated commercial operations.
FIFA planned to sell about 20% of that company to external investors, raising up to $4.2 billion. Thrive Eternal, an investment vehicle linked to Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital, was expected to lead the investor group.
FIFA had also told national associations they could receive up to $40 million in funding if they supported the plan by September 19.
However, UEFA, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation opposed the proposal. Together, the three confederations represent 143 of FIFA’s 211 associations.
UEFA’s members had unanimously agreed to boycott all FIFA competitions while the proposal remained active. The European body demanded both its complete withdrawal and binding assurances that FIFA would never open its competitions or governance to private ownership.