UEFA considering legal action against FIFA prez Infantino over World Cup sell-off plan

Nyon [Switzerland]: UEFA is considering the possibility of taking legal action against FIFA president Gianni Infantino over his FIFA World Cup sell-off plan through the FIFA Forward Enterprise and has warned him not to destroy any documents related to the plan that invited plenty of wrath from various quarters of world football, sources told ESPN.

As per ESPN, the governing body of European football has also written to Joshua Kushner, Greg Maffei, JP Morgan and Open Economics, informing them that a legal action is being considered over their association with the proposal that now stands withdrawn.

ESPN has seen a letter addressed to Infantino, a formal written request to stop the destruction of evidence to ensure that documents related to the plan and the entire controversy around it will be retained in case a legal action is needed. ESPN has also reached out to FIFA for a comment.


Infantino had proposed the creation of FIFA Forward Enterprise, a 20 billion company to run the FIFA World Cup with private involvement, including the Kushner family. After the proposal was reported on Tuesday, it invited immense wrath and concerns from world football, notably UEFA, FA (Football Association), CONCACAF (the governing body for football in North America, Central America and the Caribbean) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

Following this, Infantino scrapped the proposal to sell the WC stakes after this backlash. Prior to his announcement, UEFA's 55 member nations had agreed to boycott the World Cup and the other FIFA competitions on Thursday as a mark of protest, saying, "some things are simply too important to sell".

Also, two senior FIFA officials criticised the plan, with one handing in his resignation from the post of presidential adviser and a second saying staff members were deceived by the project. The collapse of Infantino's project has thrown his re-election to the top post in the world football governing body under doubt, with elections set for March next year in Morocco.