​UEFA Prepares Criminal Complaint Against FIFA Chief Over World Cup Stake Sale

​GENEVA/NEW YORK — European football’s governing body has escalated its civil and structural war with world football headquarters, laying the groundwork for criminal proceedings against FIFA President Gianni Infantino in Switzerland.

​The aggressive legal maneuver stems from a secretive, hastily drafted proposal by Infantino to spin off a 20 per cent commercial stake in the FIFA World Cup into a new corporate subsidiary dubbed FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), valued at $20 billion overall. Under the aborted arrangement, high-powered New York venture capital firm Thrive Capital—founded by Joshua Kushner—was lined up to inject $4.2 billion.

​According to an expansive 60-page legal filing lodged by UEFA lawyers in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the transaction was an “absurdly low enterprise value” pushed through without competitive bidding or independent valuation. UEFA’s counsel explicitly asserts that the scheme promoted a “fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit”.

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​Consequently, European officials are preparing to press formal charges for criminal mismanagement under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code, targeting Infantino alongside select FIFA administrators and associated advisers.

​The explosive document sweep targeted entities across multiple jurisdictions, with demand notices for communications and records delivered to FIFA’s North American hub in Coral Gables, Florida, alongside financial heavyweights Thrive Capital and JPMorgan Chase in New York, and financier Greg Maffei in Denver.

​The backlash from the global football ecosystem was swift and universal when the plans initially broke. Facing intense rebellion from continental bodies including UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and Concacaf, Infantino formally abandoned the stake-sale initiative.

​While UEFA recently pulled back from threats of a wider tournament boycott following assurances that FIFA would shutter future attempts to privatize its commercial arms, the looming threat of Swiss criminal indictments signals that the battle over football’s institutional governance is far from over. With upcoming leadership elections on the horizon, the mounting legal pressure threatens to permanently reshape the future of world football’s highest office.