The row between football’s two most powerful institutions has landed in a US federal court. On 1 September, two FIFA entities, FIFA (AMERICAS) Inc. and FWC2026 US, Inc., filed a motion to intervene in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, asking the judge to defer or reject UEFA’s request for testimony and documents from US-based entities.

FIFA’s language in the filing was blunt.

“While these applications are styled as legal pleadings with captions and docket numbers, they are little more than press releases in further support of UEFA’s smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership,” FIFA said in the filing.

UEFA had submitted its own ex parte application in the same court the previous week, seeking evidence for potential criminal proceedings in Switzerland against Gianni Infantino and other FIFA officials over the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise plan.

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The FFE plan that unravelled in days

FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE, was a proposed vehicle to hold the commercial rights to the men’s and women’s World Cups and open them to outside investment. The subsidiary was valued at around $20bn, with FIFA seeking to raise $4.2bn by selling minority, non-controlling stakes to private-equity investors.

The plan collapsed within days of its unveiling. UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation all pushed back, and Infantino confirmed on 31 July that the project would not proceed.

“Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place,” Infantino said.

Carlos Cordeiro, the former US Soccer president and a senior FIFA adviser, resigned in protest.

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What UEFA wants, and what FIFA calls it

UEFA’s argument is procedural. It says the FFE was drawn up without proper consultation of FIFA’s governing bodies and its 211 member associations, and it wants US-based evidence for potential criminal proceedings in Switzerland.

FIFA rejects the framing. In its 1 September filing it said UEFA was seeking discovery for “purportedly contemplated (but non-existent) Swiss criminal proceedings” and had “sought to derail the FFE proposal from the outset.”

UEFA has not stepped back from its wider campaign. It has withdrawn its earlier threat to boycott FIFA competitions but is still pursuing what it called “every available institutional, political and legal avenue” for governance reform, according to AFP.

The European body has cast the row as a governance question rather than a personal one.

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“FIFA must once again be governed as an institution serving football, not operate as an instrument of individual power,” UEFA said.

Rabat vote seven months away

Infantino is standing for a fourth term at the 77th FIFA Congress in Rabat, Morocco, on 18 March 2027. According to Sportcal, more than 200 of FIFA’s 211 members have already signed a letter of support for him.

UEFA has been joined by the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF in publicly opposing the FFE plan and calling for governance reform. The African and South American confederations continue to back him.

Those are political positions, not stored-up votes. FIFA’s presidential election is decided one member, one vote, and each of the 211 associations casts its own ballot regardless of what its confederation’s leadership recommends.

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