Fresh details have emerged about Fifa president Gianni Infantino's involvement in discussions to rebrand the failed European Super League project, with negotiations reportedly progressing to the drafting of a term sheet that could have transformed the structure of European football.
According to a document dated October 2020, whose contents have now been revealed in full, the proposal envisioned renaming any new breakaway competition under Fifa's own branding. The paper indicates that Infantino's administration was far more entangled in the scheme than previously understood - a plan that, when a version of it launched publicly in April 2021, sparked outrage among supporters and led to the exclusion of the clubs involved.
The document also shows that Fifa was willing to bypass its member associations in order to advance proposals that would have drastically reduced the number of international windows on the football calendar, compressing them into two two-week blocks per year. In exchange for its cooperation, Fifa would have received special governance powers and political rights through what was described as a "golden share" in the new venture.
The term sheet outlines a partnership lasting at least 12 years between Fifa and the Super League, including a joint venture to oversee commercial operations. It further proposes that an expanded version of Fifa's Club World Cup - referred to in the document as the "global club competition" - would run annually across a fixed three-week window and be directly linked to the Super League. Unlike the group-stage format used when the Club World Cup was relaunched in 2025, this version was designed as a straight knockout tournament.
While the term sheet stipulated that any new competitions would need approval from Fifa's congress and council, federations across the world are understood to have been left out of the plan's development. Infantino, along with several Fifa staff members, is said to have been fully aware of how the project was progressing.
The document states that the clubs behind the breakaway "want to agree the terms of a partnership" with Fifa that would lead to both competitions being created. It builds on an earlier proposal from the breakaway clubs, which similarly sketched a potential framework for cooperation. Although non-binding, a term sheet typically signals that talks are approaching a definitive agreement, suggesting negotiations between Fifa and the Super League's architects were well advanced.
It remains unclear whether the discussions moved beyond this stage. After the Super League launched in April 2021 without Fifa's direct backing, and collapsed within days amid mass protests, Infantino told Uefa's congress in Montreux that his organization could "only strongly disapprove the creation of the Super League." Sources say a conversation with Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, arranged by a third party, played a role in pushing Infantino to distance himself from the project. He is said to have later told associates he had no intention of working against football's governing institutions.
However, the newly detailed terms - combined with the collapse of Infantino's separate Football Forward Enterprise initiative - raise fresh questions about that account, pointing to a pattern of attempts to restructure the sport without input from key stakeholders.
Under the plan, the Super League would have featured 15 permanent members alongside five clubs qualifying through existing competitions, and included provisions for launching a women's equivalent using the same clubs at an unspecified future date. In the document, Fifa is referred to under the codename "WO1," and one section states the Super League "is open to discuss naming the competition WO1 SL." Fifa would also have received a preferred equity stake, granting influence over format changes, calendar decisions, distribution of solidarity payments, and the appointment of the competition's chief executive.
Participating clubs would have been required to join the World Football Club Association, a body launched by Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez in 2019. Real, central to the original Super League push, only abandoned the project after reaching an agreement with Uefa earlier this year.
Fifa was approached for comment.
Based on reporting from The Guardian.