MONACO \u2014 UEFA is preparing a criminal complaint against FIFA President Gianni Infantino in Swiss courts for possible financial mismanagement over his\u00a0failed plan to sell future World Cup profits\u00a0to private investors.<\/p>\n
The governing body of European soccer announced its intentions in court documents filed Thursday in the U.S. seeking access to possible evidence related to the sell-off plan, which was withdrawn after a furious backlash by UEFA and other global soccer leaders.<\/p>\n
The move increases the pressure on Infantino, who is facing the biggest crisis in his 10 years as FIFA’s leader.<\/p>\n
UEFA filed documents in a Manhattan court requesting discovery of potential evidence from the New York investment fund, Thrive Capital Management, founded by\u00a0Josh Kushner\u00a0\u2014 the younger brother of President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n
UEFA also filed a request in a southern Florida district for authorization of discovery \u201cin a foreign proceeding\u201d against FIFA itself, which has offices in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables.<\/p>\n
Under the plan\u00a0revealed in late July,\u00a0Thrive and Kushner were to be the anchor investors intending to pay FIFA $4.2 billion for a 20 per cent stake in a subsidiary that would run the soccer body\u2019s commercial events, including the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cUEFA and its counsel are contemplating a Swiss criminal proceeding against Infantino and possibly other FIFA officials for criminal mismanagement under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code,\u201d UEFA\u2019s lawyers state in a 56-page document seen by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
The document suggests the $4.2 billion figure could be a \u201cfraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
FIFA is expected to have about $5 billion in cash reserves after the World Cup in North America boosted its revenue to a record $15 billion over the 2023-26 commercial cycle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question is therefore why the FIFA president believed he needed outside investors to expand development funding,\u201d UEFA said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Infantino dropped the sell-off plan on Aug. 1 after intense criticism led by soccer officials in Europe.<\/p>\n
UEFA had warned against destroying potential evidence<\/p>\n
UEFA first threatened to take legal action\u00a0on Aug. 3\u00a0when it warned FIFA against destroying or hiding any “relevant materials\u201d related to the plan. Thursday’s legal move was revealed to its member federations in Monaco just two hours before the Champions League draw began.<\/p>\n
\u201cInfantino claimed that the plan would \u2018unleash the commercial potential and opportunity that FIFA has,\u2019\u201d UEFA lawyers told the courts. \u201cIn truth, it was a vehicle for Infantino and that small circle to acquire a permanent stake in and otherwise profit from FIFA\u2019s most valuable assets to the detriment of FIFA, its members, and other parties within the football family.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the terms Infantino announced, those investors stood to acquire a permanent financial interest in FIFA\u2019s commercial arm for $4.2 billion, implying an absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20 billion, a figure that was neither the product of an open, competitive auction, nor tested by any independent valuer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thrive declined to comment. FIFA was approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Swiss prosecutors’ poor results in FIFA trials<\/p>\n
It was unclear if UEFA would send a potential criminal complaint to the Swiss federal prosecution office in Bern or to local prosecutors in FIFA’s home city Zurich.<\/p>\n
The Swiss attorney general’s office has a poor record in recent years prosecuting cases of alleged corruption linked to FIFA and soccer officials.<\/p>\n
Former FIFA president\u00a0Sepp Blatter, former UEFA president Michel Platini\u00a0and the influential\u00a0Qatari president of Champions League\u00a0title holder Paris Saint-Germain,\u00a0Nasser al-Khela\u00effi, all were acquitted twice at trials in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
UEFA committed to replacing Infantino<\/p>\n
The crisis has raised questions about Infantino\u2019s future. Just months ago, he was widely expected to win another four-year term in the FIFA election set for March 2027, but a growing number of soccer federations around the world but mainly in Europe have\u00a0withdrawn their support, with some joining UEFA in\u00a0calling on him to step down, ideally before the Nov. 18 deadline for candidates.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould the current FIFA president nevertheless seek another mandate, UEFA will join forces with its partner confederations to ensure that member associations are offered a credible alternative,\u201d the European body said, \u201cone committed to integrity, accountability, development and genuine institutional change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONACO \u2014 UEFA is preparing a criminal complaint against FIFA President Gianni Infantino in Swiss courts for possible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":["post-873727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}