FIFA accused European soccer body UEFA of a \u201csmear campaign\u201d in a court filing on Thursday concerning FIFA President Gianni Infantino\u2019s failed plan to sell stakes in the World Cup and other competitions. <\/p>\n
Last week, UEFA filed requests for discovery of evidence connected to Infantino\u2019s proposal in three U.S. courts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile these applications are styled as legal pleadings with captions and docket numbers, they are little more than press releases in further support of UEFA\u2019s smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership,\u201d FIFA said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Colorado.<\/p>\n
FIFA\u2019s filing in Colorado on Thursday was a motion to intervene, asking that the discovery process be deferred or dropped.<\/p>\n
One of UEFA\u2019s discovery requests was filed in the Southern District of New York and seeks disclosure of documents from Josh Kushner and his investment firm Thrive Capital Management. Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law.<\/p>\n
Thrive was involved in Infantino\u2019s FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup to private equity for $4.2 billion. FIFA withdrew the proposal on Aug. 1, just days after it was made public, after intense pushback.<\/p>\n
Other court filings seeking discovery of evidence related to the World Cup sell-off were filed in Florida, where FIFA had its 2026 World Cup operational base, and in Colorado, against an adviser to Infantino, Greg Maffei, once the CEO of Liberty Media.<\/p>\n
In a statement Monday to the outlet Axios, Kushner defended the proposal but said he did not anticipate the pushback.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we stand behind the motivations of FFE, we failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football, and the lengths some would go to. Thrive has a long track record of being a partner to all constituents. Had we known what this would devolve into, we would not have gotten involved,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Kushner also agreed last month to purchase the NBA\u2019s Los Angeles Lakers with partner Bob Iger.<\/p>\n
UEFA has said in court documents that it is preparing a criminal complaint against Infantino in Swiss courts for possible financial mismanagement.<\/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.\u201d<\/p>\n
FIFA argued that UEFA\u2019s request \u201csuffers from a fundamental defect: UEFA seeks discovery in aid of a foreign criminal proceeding that does not exist and that UEFA admittedly lacks the authority to initiate.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the filing, FIFA accused UEFA of coercing its European federations to oppose the plan.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here <\/p>\n
Anne M. Peterson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIFA accused European soccer body UEFA of a \u201csmear campaign\u201d in a court filing on Thursday concerning FIFA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,77,561,82],"class_list":["post-882291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-international","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882291","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=882291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}