Aleksander Ceferin has borrowed the loudest reference point available to a European football leader to describe Gianni Infantino’s shelved sell-off of FIFA’s commercial rights.
“I think this plan is even worse than the Super League plan,” Ceferin told The Rest Is Politics: Leading podcast.
The comparison lands with weight because of who is making it. Ceferin led UEFA’s response when 12 clubs tried to break away in April 2021 and saw the Super League collapse within 48 hours. Saying that a proposal from inside FIFA was worse than that project is the sharpest verdict a sitting football leader has passed on Infantino in weeks of crisis coverage.
The FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan, unveiled in late July, would have created a commercial subsidiary handling rights to FIFA’s tournaments, including the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup, with up to a 20% stake sold to private investors. FIFA withdrew the proposal in early August after opposition led by UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC. Ceferin said the outcome is not in doubt.
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“I’m absolutely sure that the plan is dead,” he said.
“Football would be literally sold.”
‘He didn’t contact me’
Ceferin also confirmed that he has not spoken to Infantino since the row erupted.
“He didn’t contact me since this happened,” the UEFA president told the podcast.
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He returned to a familiar barb.
“Someone should remind him that he is a European, and that he was supported by Uefa, which he forgot.”
Not a candidate, but promising one
Infantino needs to win a fourth term at the 77th FIFA Congress in Morocco next March, and Ceferin ruled out putting his own name forward.
“I’m not interested because of two reasons. One reason is that I love Uefa and I love working here,” Ceferin said, adding that “my credibility is much, much, much higher if I’m not interested in the position.”
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He predicted Infantino would either accept he no longer has the room to run, or face a challenger in Morocco.
“He goes to the elections in March, but in that case I think he will have a candidate against him. I don’t know yet who.”
Confederations do not control how their members vote; each of FIFA’s 211 associations casts its own ballot, and any candidate needs 106 to win. But the political map from the FFE fight is instructive: UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC opposed the sale, while CAF publicly backed Infantino and Conmebol declined to move against him before the Congress. The candidacy deadline is 18 November.
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