UEFA has issued a strong statement distancing itself from FIFA’s recent decision-making, specifically criticizing the FIFA Future Enterprise (FFE) plan that was scrapped after backlash. The European football governing body accused FIFA President Gianni Infantino of failing to uphold his promises of transparency and proper financial management.

Accusations of Mismanagement and Lack of Transparency

UEFA’s statement, released hours after FIFA announced it would abandon the FFE plan, highlighted concerns over ‘secret schemes’ and ‘fast-track timescales’ that were ‘cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game.’ The organization called for accountability, stating, ‘We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.’

Infantino had previously pledged transparency, telling parties in 2016: ‘The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA president. You are the national associations and the money of FIFA has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.’ UEFA criticized Infantino for failing to deliver on these promises, calling the FFE plan a ‘shabby, back room, opaque deal’ that was ‘anything but transparent.’

UEFA Proposes Alternative Strategies for FIFA Funds

UEFA has committed to developing a new plan ‘with its associations and in close co-operation with other confederations’ to ensure such controversies do not happen again. It also intends to work with partners to ‘propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward programme.’

The statement added that ‘we must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in FIFA’s bank account to deliver the kickstart that the grassroots and the wider game need.’ However, it emphasized that ‘we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.’

Rebuilding Trust in FIFA

UEFA described the cancellation of the FFE plan as ‘a victory for the whole game.’ However, it stressed that ‘the task of rebuilding trust in FIFA has only just begun.’ The statement concluded with a warning that ‘this is not the end of the story,’ signaling continued scrutiny of FIFA’s leadership.

FIFA has yet to respond to Uefa’s statement, according to the BBC. The controversy highlights growing tensions within world football over governance, financial practices, and transparency.