FIFA lawyers claimed UEFA is harassing Gianni Infantino in a court filing urging a Florida judge to deny the European soccer body’s request for evidence discovery about a World Cup private investor plan that has rocked the sport. The 21-page filing to the court in the Southern District of Florida late Monday, seen by The Associated Press, said UEFA was wrong to suggest the FIFA president sought to profit personally from the project that provoked a furor in July and was dropped within days.
An Oct. UEFA led a global backlash to the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan and is preparing an election challenge to Infantino, who had seemed set to win unopposed until creating the biggest crisis of his near 11-year presidency. The secretive plan was revealed on July 28 in media reports and led FIFA’s now-ousted chief operating officer Kevin Lamour to criticize Infantino’s leadership. 15 meeting of the 37-member FIFA Council, to be chaired by Infantino in Zurich, is set to debate proposals on finance and governance as he seeks to manage the fallout from the divisive World Cup sell-off plan.
The FIFA boss’s senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs partner, also resigned in protest at the deal, which he said was bad for soccer. FIFA has consistently said the commercial spinoff was intended to accelerate the development of soccer worldwide, outside Europe’s wealthy power base.
