Uefa and Concacaf Demand Fifa Release Billions in Reserves
Uefa and Concacaf have turned up the heat on Gianni Infantino, demanding that Fifa unlock billions from its bulging reserves and hand at least $10m (£7.5m) to every one of its 211 member associations.
The joint move, set out in a letter seen by BBC Sport, is a direct response to the Fifa president’s now-abandoned private equity project, Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) – and it lands like a challenge to his authority as much as to his financial strategy.
Power play after private equity climbdown
FFE would have created a new company to control commercial and ticketing rights for all Fifa competitions, including World Cups, with 21% sold to an outside investment firm. In return, Infantino promised a windfall: $40m (£30m) per federation if they backed the plan, with an initial $20m (£15m) dangled in front of them if they signed up by 19 September.
It lasted four days.
Widespread resistance from national associations forced the proposal to be scrapped almost as quickly as it was unveiled. Now, instead of accepting private money and long-term commercial carve‑ups, two of football’s most powerful confederations are asking a simple question: why not just use Fifa’s own cash?
“These resources belong to football”
The letter, signed by Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin and Concacaf president Victor Montagliani, points directly at Fifa’s balance sheet. It states that Fifa is on course to close the 2023-26 cycle with reserves of around $6bn (£4.5bn) – a figure they say is “considerably more than is required” to carry the organisation through to the 2030 men’s World Cup.
Their demand is clear: Fifa should “make at least $10m available to each of its 211 member associations over the 2027-30 cycle”, ring-fenced for “investment in infrastructure and football development”.
That “one-off release of reserves” would cost $2.11bn (£1.57bn). Crucially, it would sit on top of the standard development funding Fifa already distributes.
“Fifa currently holds billions of dollars in accumulated reserves,” the letter reads. “These resources belong to football and exist to serve the game and its 211 member associations.”
The message is pointed. Fifa, they argue, should not hoard cash while asking members to sign up to complex financial engineering.
Questioning the need for FFE
Ceferin and Montagliani say they commissioned analysis of Fifa’s published financial statements and budgets. That work, they claim, casts doubt on whether the FFE plan was ever needed to boost money going back into the game.
The analysis, they stress, was “deliberately conservative”, yet still suggested that Fifa could afford to release more from its reserves. They want the Fifa Council to consider an even larger distribution once the final financial position at year-end is known.
They also call for an “independent review” of Fifa’s finances, with “full access to the underlying figures and assumptions”. In other words, not just headline numbers, but the workings behind them.
The underlying argument is as political as it is financial. “Releasing part of these reserves would demonstrate that member associations should not have to choose between development and good governance; between investment and integrity; or between financial support and the ability to consider proposals on their merits,” the letter states.
Then comes the line that cuts to the heart of the dispute: “Development is an institutional responsibility of Fifa – not a matter of individual discretion.”
Building a global coalition
Uefa and Concacaf are not acting in isolation. A second letter, also seen by BBC Sport, has gone to the presidents of the other four confederations – Asia, Africa, South America and Oceania – urging them to back the push for a broader release of funds.
If those regions fall in behind Uefa and Concacaf, Infantino would face coordinated pressure from across the global game to turn reserves into direct investment, without tying it to a contentious commercial restructure.
The timing is no accident. The private equity plan may be dead, but the debate it triggered over who controls Fifa’s money – and on what terms – is very much alive.
Fresh scrutiny over governance
The financial row arrives just as Fifa faces another demand for transparency from within its own inner circle.
Football Association chair Debbie Hewitt, who also serves as a Fifa vice-president, has written to Infantino and Fifa secretary general Mattias Grafstrom, insisting that all documents related to the FFE proposal are released. She wants the Fifa Council to receive a written explanation of why the suspension of United States forward Folarin Balogun at the World Cup was cancelled.
Her message was blunt: make all documents available before the next Fifa Council meeting on 15 October.
So the president now finds himself squeezed on two fronts – one financial, one governance-related – and both driven by senior figures who sit inside the game’s highest structures.
Billions in reserves. A scrapped private equity deal. Confederations closing ranks. The next Fifa Council meeting will not just tidy up an abandoned project; it will signal whether the sport’s governing body is prepared to open its books – and its vaults – to the people it claims to serve.
