SAT AUG 01 2026-theGBJournal| UEFA, Europe’s governing body for football, has welcomed FIFA’s decision to abandon plans to sell a stake in the commercial rights to the World Cup and other competitions, calling the reversal “a victory for the whole game” while warning that the global governing body now faces the much bigger challenge of restoring trust across world football.
In a strongly worded statement on Saturday, European football’s governing body said the proposed private investment deal had been unanimously rejected by UEFA’s 55 national associations, as well as by “many other federations and confederations of all sizes around the world,” arguing that football’s stakeholders had united to protect the sport from outside ownership.
UEFA said FIFA’s decision to withdraw the proposal marked an important victory for fans, leagues, clubs, players and national associations who had campaigned against the plan.
“UEFA welcomes FIFA’s decision to withdraw its plan to sell a stake in its competitions – including the World Cup – into private hands,” the organisation said.
The governing body also thanked “all the fans, leagues, clubs, players, individuals, associations and confederations” that opposed the proposal, alongside “the many Prime Ministers, Heads of State and commentators” whose public criticism helped convince FIFA President Gianni Infantino that “football is not for sale.”
While welcoming the reversal, UEFA delivered one of its strongest criticisms yet of FIFA’s leadership, accusing it of pursuing the proposal through a secretive process with little consultation.
“We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game,” UEFA said. “We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.”
UEFA said it would now work closely with its member associations and other continental confederations in the coming days and weeks to examine how the proposal emerged and to ensure a similar situation cannot happen again.
“That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table,” UEFA said, adding that “the current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”
The statement also revisited remarks made by Infantino during his successful campaign for the FIFA presidency in 2016, when he pledged greater transparency and insisted FIFA’s resources belonged to its member associations.
UEFA recalled Infantino’s promises: “Of course we have to be transparent,” before quoting his assurance that, “The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA President… the money of FIFA has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.”
UEFA argued those commitments had not been honoured.
“On both these promises, he has failed to deliver,” UEFA said. “The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through was anything but transparent.”
The organisation also questioned why FIFA had sought outside investment despite holding more than $5 billion in reserves, saying those funds should instead be deployed to strengthen football around the world.
“With reserves standing at over $5bn, he has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.”
Rather than selling stakes in its flagship tournaments, UEFA said it would immediately begin discussions with partners and stakeholders worldwide on a new approach to distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward programme.
“We must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in FIFA’s bank account to deliver the kick start that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of FIFA,” UEFA said.
“But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.”
Although celebrating FIFA’s withdrawal of the proposal, UEFA stressed that the episode should mark the beginning—not the end—of reforms within world football.
“This is a victory for the whole game,” UEFA concluded. “But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in FIFA has only just begun.”
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