Uefa calls for Fifa releases paperwork regarding World Cup sell-off scheme

Uefa has given Fifa a two-week deadline to launch key paperwork regarding Gianni Infantino’s World Cup sell-off plan and different governance points in its latest critique of football’s world governing body.

A letter despatched to Fifa’s normal secretary, Mattias Grafström, by his counterpart at Uefa, Theodore Theodoridis, is accompanied by an eight-page doc that has greater than 50 questions on Fifa’s dealing with of dozens of points over the previous 12 months. These embody the proposed sale of 20% of its business rights, the Folarin Balogun affair, the peace prize and relations with Donald Trump and the preparations for subsequent yr’s Fifa presidential election. Uefa’s doc additionally makes a lot of allegations about potential conflicts of pursuits at Fifa, in addition to repeating requires a “genuinely impartial” governance evaluation.

Uefa’s newest intervention follows final week’s assembly of the Fifa council in Zurich, the primary time it had gathered because the emergence of the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) controversy in July. Infantino listened to questions on FFE and different issues, however declined to supply substantive solutions, as an alternative asking council members to submit them in writing earlier than their subsequent assembly in Doha on 16 December.

In a letter despatched on Monday, Theodoridis wrote: “These explanations haven’t begun satisfactorily to deal with a lot of basic questions raised by Council members.

“Others stay unanswered, and the knowledge and documentation requested haven’t been supplied.

“Following the invitation made in the course of the assembly to submit our questions in writing, we due to this fact enclose a consolidated set of questions and requests for info.

“We formally request a substantive written response to every query, along with all supporting documentation by Monday 2nd November. Any refusal to reveal info or paperwork must be justified individually, with a transparent rationalization of the particular grounds relied upon.

“These questions require solutions now. They can’t be deferred till the subsequent assembly of the Fifa Council – nor can future governance reforms substitute for scrutiny of selections already taken and accountability for them.”

The accompanying doc and checklist of supplementary questions constitutes a damning takedown of Fifa’s management below Infantino, who, because it stands, is heading in the right direction to be re-elected unopposed as president subsequent yr, though Uefa is more and more hopeful of figuring out a candidate to take him on earlier than nominations shut on 18 November.

Uefa additionally desires solutions on the processes behind different main selections taken by Fifa over the previous 12 months together with transferring the boys’s World Cup draw to Washington DC from Las Vegas, the introduction of hydration breaks and the 27-minute half-time on the World Cup remaining.

“A sequence of selections, transactions and interventions involving the Fifa President, the President of the United States and people related to him elevate severe questions regarding potential conflicts of curiosity, transparency and institutional accountability,” Uefa states.

The quantity Fifa is paying to lease workplace house in Trump Tower can be queried, as is a report within the Times final week that Infantino in 2024 “acquired substantial further remuneration which was not disclosed in Fifa’s annual report”. Fifa has mentioned it “doesn’t pay a second wage to the Fifa president and complies with all reporting necessities in relation to compensation”.

Uefa additionally raises issues about March’s presidential election, particularly concerning the involvement of Bruno Chiomento, the chair of Fifa’s electoral committee. “We perceive that Mr Chiomento has recognized the Fifa President for roughly 20 years and is repeatedly invited to Fifa occasions and competitions at Fifa’s expense,” Uefa’s doc states. “We additional perceive that he attended your entire 2026 World Cup as an accredited particular person, along with his bills lined by Fifa for greater than 5 weeks.”

Uefa has additionally requested a whole checklist of Fifa company in VIP and VVIP areas on the World Cup remaining, on the grounds that “quite a few company had been apparently given precedence over Presidents of Member Associations and Secretaries General of Confederations”.

Fifa has been contacted for remark.