European football's governing body, Uefa, is taking steps toward filing a criminal complaint against Fifa president Gianni Infantino, accusing him of financial mismanagement tied to a now-abandoned scheme to sell commercial stakes in the World Cup.
The move marks a dramatic escalation in tensions between Uefa and Fifa, with Uefa's legal representatives having lodged applications in United States courts seeking access to documents connected to the plan, formally known as the Fifa Forward Enterprise proposal. Among the material being sought is information held by Fifa itself.
According to the filing, Uefa and other parties are readying themselves to pursue criminal action in Switzerland against Infantino, and potentially other Fifa officials and advisors, under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code, a statute covering criminal mismanagement.
To obtain the relevant records, Uefa has relied on a legal mechanism known as a Section 1782 application. This provision allows a party involved in litigation outside the United States to request that a court compel the disclosure of documents or testimony from an individual or organization based in the US, even when the underlying dispute is unfolding elsewhere.
A lengthy 56-page document submitted by Uefa's legal team to a US court, and reviewed by reporters, lays out the basis for the planned criminal complaint. It states that Infantino pushed forward with a proposal to divest a 20 per cent stake in the World Cup to private investors in exchange for $4.2billion. Uefa's lawyers argue this valuation was drastically undersized, describing it in the filing as reflecting an