Lost Confidence

UEFA has issued a statement declaring that the FIFA president has lost its confidence, even after the withdrawal of the private investment plan for the World Cup. The plan, which envisioned raising up to $4.2 billion based on a $20 billion valuation for a planned commercial subsidiary, is dead. The damage, according to UEFA, is not.[1]

The statement did not hold back. UEFA called the deal "shabby, back room, opaque" and accused the FIFA president of breaking promises he made when he first sought election in 2016, namely to be transparent and to treat FIFA's money as belonging to the member associations, not the president. "On both these promises, he has failed to deliver," UEFA said. The statement noted that FIFA's reserves stand at over $5 billion, yet the leadership has "failed to use associations' money for the benefit of the game."[2]

The plan would have provided each of FIFA's 211 member associations with a one-off payment of $20 million in early 2027 and increased their funding allocation for the 2027-2030 cycle from $8 million to $20 million. That is a lot of money for smaller associations. The promise of cash is the oldest lever in football governance. UEFA saw through it. So did the AFC and CONCACAF, which also condemned the plan. The threat of a UEFA boycott of all FIFA competitions was the killing blow.[3]

This completes a four-part arc. The World Cup Is Not for Sale covered the UEFA boycott threat. The Counteroffensive covered the FLF president's warning. The Project Is Not for Sale covered FIFA scrapping the plan. Now UEFA is making clear that withdrawing the plan does not undo the breach of trust. "We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast track timescales," the statement said. This is not a disagreement about policy. It is a breakdown of confidence in leadership, played out in public, weeks after what was judged a successful World Cup spread across three countries.[4]