UEFA questions FIFA president Gianni Infantino over governance and transparency, demanding written answers to 42 questions by November 2 concerning key decisions, including the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise project and the FIFA Peace Prize. The UEFA General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis wrote the letter to his FIFA counterpart Mattias Grafstrom on Monday, asking him to clarify on 12 issues. The transfer puts pressure on Infantino, who is seeking re-election next year.
The battle arises from Infantino’s idea for the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), an upcoming corporation to oversee the commercial side of FIFA events, which includes the World Cup. The idea was to sell a minority stake to private investors, but that has now been dropped from the proposal. UEFA has been one of the most vocal opponents of the project, and has even demanded more accountability to Infantino as a leader. Last week the FIFA president issued an apology to the FIFA Council and said that the council members would be allowed to put questions to him in writing, which he would respond to at the next meeting of the council on 16 December.
But Theodoridis did not give in to the idea of waiting for answers until that gathering. He commented in a letter seen by Reuters that these questions must be answered now. He also emphasized that such governance reforms would not be able to compensate for the review of decisions made in the past. UEFA had hoped that FIFA would be able to give the transparency that it requires for its own governing body and make a full response by the 2 November deadline. FIFA, on the other hand, protected the confidentiality of its internal proceedings.
