UEFA has welcomed FIFA’s withdrawal of its plans to sell a stake in the World Cup and demands that those responsible for “secret plans, fast-tracked” be held accountable. In a statement released this Saturday, UEFA pointed out that in the coming days and weeks it will work with its federations “and in close collaboration with other confederations, to reflect on how this happened and develop a plan to ensure it does not happen again” and that “this review must be thorough and deep.”
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“No option should be ruled out. The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s trust but also that of many other members of the football family. We cannot continue like this, with secret plans fast-tracked, [conceived by anonymous people and of dubious benefit to the sport. We must identify those responsible and demand accountability],” added the body led by Aleksander Ceferin. Hours after FIFA officially announced it was abandoning its intention to create a subsidiary to commercialize its competitions, including the World Cup, UEFA highlighted that “the proposal was unanimously rejected” by European national federations “and by many other federations and confederations worldwide, regardless of their size, whose mission is to protect football.”
UEFA welcomes FIFA’s withdrawal of plans to sell a stake in the World Cup
— UEFA (@UEFA) August 1, 2026
“UEFA thanks all the fans, leagues, clubs, players, individuals, federations, and confederations who opposed this initiative, as well as the numerous prime ministers, heads of state, and commentators who have shown the FIFA president that football is not for sale,” UEFA stated today in its text. It also recalled and reproduced the words of Gianni Infantino when he sought the trust and votes of FIFA member federations to be elected president in 2016: “Of course, we must be transparent. That’s how I have been during the last 15 years of my life at UEFA. You will have to play a role every day in FIFA’s life. FIFA’s money is your money. It is not the FIFA president’s money. It is your money. You are the national federations, and FIFA’s money must serve the development of football and nothing else.”
“In both promises, he has failed. The shabby, closed-door, opaque deal he devised and tried to impose was anything but transparent. And with reserves exceeding 5 billion dollars, he has also not used the federations’ money for the benefit of football,” UEFA concluded today.
The top European football organization has announced that it “will start working immediately with partners and stakeholders worldwide and from all areas of football to propose a new way to distribute resources through the already existing FIFA Forward program.” “We must start using some of that money that remains inactive in FIFA’s bank account to give the initial boost that the grassroots and football in general need in each of FIFA’s 211 countries. But there is no need to sell the family jewels to finance it,” it stated.
“This is a victory for all football. But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has already been presented. The task of restoring trust in FIFA has only just begun,” it concluded. UEFA was the first confederation to show its total rejection of the FIFA president’s idea after it was revealed by the press and, following the official announcement of the project by FIFA, announced that its federations would not participate in its competitions if the idea went ahead. After a meeting of the 55 federations that make up UEFA, the body announced the “unanimous and unequivocal stance to reject FIFA’s proposal to transfer ownership stakes of the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors.” Last Wednesday, FIFA announced its intention to sell 20% of FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), the new subsidiary it sought to create to handle the organization’s commercial operations and events, such as the World Cup, its main product.
