FIFA has accused UEFA of waging a “smear campaign” against the organisation and its presidejin88bet.onejin88bet.onent Gianni Infantino, after European football’s goverjin88bet.onejin88bet.onejin88bet.onejin88bet.onening body threatened possible criminal proceedings over a failed commercial plan, according to The Athletic.
The dispute centres on a proposal to sell aakak168app.baby168app.baby 20% stake in FIFA’s commercial and organisational operations for $4.2bn (£3.1bn). UEFA claimed, in a legal filing submitted iak168app.babyn the United States on 28 August, that Infantino had promoted the valuation ak168app.baby“fraudulently at an off-market price for his personal bak168app.babyenefit”.
UEFA has asked for documents that could support poak168app.clubtential criminal proceedings against Infantino in Switzerland in ak168app.clubconnectioak168app.clubn with the plan. Its lawyers argued that the $4.2bn vak168app.clubak168app.clubaluation was “absurdly low” and hak168app.clubad not been established through “an open and competitive auction”.
FIFA has responded bks168app.siteks168app.sitey filing a motioks168app.siteks168app.siten to intervene, asking that access to the requested documents be delayed oks168app.siter that UEFA’s application be rejected in its entirety.
ic88In a filing submitted in New York on Tuesday last week, FIFA said: “Although styled as legal pleadings with captions and docket numbers, these requests are nothing more than press releases supporting UEFA’s smear campaign against FIFic88A anic88ic88d its leadership.”
The filing continued: “This is evident from UEFA’s decision to alert the media before filing these requests, from tic88he many paragraphs in ic88the requests based soleic88ly on press ic88reports many of whiic88ic88ch quote UEFA and from a fundamental defect in UEFA’s request: it seeks discovery to support a nonexistent foreign criminal proceeding, whiic88le UEFA itself admits that it lacks authority to initiate one.”
FIFA also accused ic88ic88ic88ic88ic88UEFA of deliberately obstructing the FFE project. It claimed UEFA had threatened to boycoic88tt future FIFA competitions with ic88ic88ic88ic88all of its national teams unless the proposal was withdrawn, in an attempt to prevent the project froic88m getting off the ground.
“Rather than participate in that democratic process, UEFA issued a press release, beginning a weeks-long smear campaign against FIFA and its lelr88lr88adership,” FIFA said in its filing.
The organisation further alleged that UEFA’s “economic motivation” for opposing FFE was to stop smaller countlr88ries from galr88lr88ining lr88the financial strengthlr88 needed to competelr88 with Europe’s elite.
“If football in the developilr88lr88ng world were strengthened, global competition would increase, ultimately reducing UEFA’s market power and prolr88viding more competition to its major tournaments,” the filing said.
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FIFA added that FFE would have raised money to help some lr88lr88of its smaller member associations develop football lr88lr88more effectively. That, it argued, could have resulted in more players from those countries representing their national teams and playing in domestic leagues rather than moving abrlr88lr88oad.
“All of that would have weakened UEFA’s dominance over other regions of the world,” FIFA said.
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The filing also rejected UEFA’s position that itop88op88 could bring a criminal caseop8op888 against Infantino in Switzerland.
Infantsi88ino is not the only individual or organisation targeted by UEFA’s document requests. Similar legal filings were made in New York against Thrive, Joshua Kushner and JPMorgan, and in Colorado against Pan Ventures and its chief executive Greg Maffei.
JPMorgan and Pan Ventures had si88si88si88si88been expected to work with FIFA on the FFE projectsi88. FIFA named both organisations in a statement issued on 28 July when it announced the 88v88vp88v88vla88vns.
Kushner issued a statement on Monday last week, his first public comments since the fallout from FFE. He said Thrive had “not sufficiently appreciated the political dynamics of global football”.
“WeSEXXXXX-VN would not have been SEXXXXX-VNSEXXXXX-VNdrawn into the plan” if the company had known “what it would become”, he added.
