UEFA hits out at Gianni Infantino after FIFA scraps controversial World Cup plans | Football | Sport
UEFA, Europe’s governing football body, has released a statement this morning, hours after it emerged FIFA was scrapping its plans to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors. The strongly-worded statement claimed FIFA president Gianni Infantino has “lost the confidence” of the body as well as “that of many other members of the football family” through the controversial World Cup plan.
Infantino announced overnight that the proposal would be dropped after three confederations, including the European body, CONCACAF and the AFC, rejected it. UEFA, going further, had threatened to boycott FIFA competitions until the proposal was scrapped. Newly-appointed UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham also weighed into the row, saying Mr Infantino was the “wrong man” to lead FIFA.
After recalling that the proposal to sell off stakes in a World Cup company to investors was opposed by UEFA’s national associations as well as other federations around the world, the statement read: “UEFA thanks all the fans, leagues, clubs, players, individuals, associations and confederations that opposed the scheme, alongside the many Prime Ministers, Heads of State and commentators who have demonstrated to the FIFA President that football is not for sale.”
Later in the statement, UEFA also said: “It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again.
“That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table.
“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”
UEFA’s statement referenced an election speech from Infantino a decade ago, when he promised transparency and pledged that “the money of FIFA is your money”.
UEFA added: “On both these promises, he has failed to deliver.”
The body accused Mr Infantino of hatching a “shabby, back room, opaque deal” over the World Cup sell-off stakes, before trying to “force it through”.
Celebrating the decision by FIFA to drop the World Cup plan, UEFA said it would begin to work “immediately with partners and stakeholders all over the world and right across the game to propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward programme”.
It added: “We must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in FIFA’s bank account to deliver the kick start that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of FIFA. But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.
“This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in FIFA has only just begun.”
