UEFA filed a discovery application in three U.S. court districts on Thursday against FIFA president Gianni Infantino, Thrive Capital and ex-Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei over their attempts to privatize the World Cup in a short-lived but controversial plan that continues to inspire a weeks-long back-and-forth between soccer’s most influential organizations.
In a filing in the Southern District of New York, UEFA petitioned the court to take discovery from Thrive Capital and the venture capital firm’s founder, Joshua Kushner, who was the lead investor in FIFA’s since-scrapped plans to sell stakes in the World Cup to outside investors. UEFA has not currently filed any lawsuits but is seeking the authority to subpoena Thrive and Kushner, the brother of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared, in an effort to gather information in a possible criminal proceeding against Infantino in Switzerland.
“UEFA and its counsel are contemplating a Swiss criminal proceeding against Infantino and possibly other FIFA officials for criminal mismanagement under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code,” the lawyers for European soccer’s governing body wrote in the filing.
Thrive is based in New York; similar applications were filed in the Southern District of Florida because FIFA has an office in Miami and in the District of Colorado because Maffei, Infantino’s advisor on the privatization plan, is based in the state. While UEFA explores a criminal complaint against Infantino, there is currently no indication that Kushner or Maffei would become defendants in the potential Swiss case.
UEFA accuses Infantino of “criminal mismanagement” as it pertains to FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), which would have seen FIFA bundle the commercial rights to the men’s and women’s World Cups and Club World Cups and sell around 20% to private investors for $4.2 billion. The proposal quickly caught flak from UEFA as well as its respective North American and Asian counterparts, Concacaf and the AFC, who criticized Infantino for hatching the plan in isolation and without following world soccer’s governance procedures. FIFA abandoned the plans within a matter of days.
In its filing, UEFA specifically takes issue with the financial specifics of the proposal by describing them as “absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20 billion” and claims that “a valuation exceeding $30 billion is readily supportable using assumptions grounded in FIFA’s own publicly reported financial performance and observable market multiples for comparable sports and media rights businesses.” UEFA also criticized the process by which Infantino hoped to see the proposal come to fruition, saying it was “neither the product of an open, competitive auction, nor tested by any independent valuer” and pointed towards FIFA’s imposed deadline of Sept. 19 for its 211 member associations (MA) to approve the plan.
Though Kushner and Maffei are not the subjects of the potential criminal proceedings in Switzerland, where both FIFA and UEFA are based, the pair are described as a “vehicle for Infantino and that small circle to acquire a permanent stake in and otherwise profit from FIFA’s most valuable assets to the detriment of FIFA, its members and other parties within the football family.”
UEFA furthers its stance against FIFA, Infantino
The discovery applications mark the latest steps in a multi-pronged rejection of FIFA and Infantino following the FFE debacle. Though the privatization plan was scrapped and UEFA has since abandoned the idea of a boycott of FIFA-organized events on a provisional basis, the proposal has thrown Infantino’s re-election campaign into complete disarray.
Infantino announced in April that he would seek a fourth and final term as FIFA president and was poised to run unopposed as of last month. He had more than 200 letters of support from the 211 MAs, who make up the voting body in presidential elections, in the week leading up to the World Cup final on July 19 but his leadership has been called into question since. Several MAs have revoked their support, while the voting members from UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC have mostly maintained their opposition to Infantino despite his attempts to do damage control.
No one has currently announced their intentions to run against Infantino but Concacaf president Victor Montagliani is reportedly mulling a bid. Candidates have until Nov. 18 to submit their interest for the presidential election, which will take place on March 18 at the FIFA Congress in Rabat, Morocco.
