Football has won. Just as was the case when the European Super League idea was introduced several years ago, FIFA's $20 billion private investment plan centered around the creation of the subsidiary of FIFA Forward Enterprise has been met with justified backlash from football's other governing organizations.
UEFA, CONCACAF, AFC, and other governing bodies have come out and spoken against FIFA's proposed investment plan and also made it clear that they do not support the re-election of Gianni Infantino for the FIFA presidency, as he was the chief architect behind the investment plan that would've commercial and tournament operations into a separate, controlled subsidiary backed by private equity. In other words, after already experiencing the largets World Cup we've ever seen, the tournament as we all know and love it could have been completely changes.
In the latest round of statements from key figures across football's governing bodies, DFB president Bernd Neuendorf offered his own, diplomatic take, expressing the opinion that FIFA needs to work a great deal on its transparency.
Neuendorf’s message to FIFA
This step by FIFA was inevitable. The attempt to open FIFA competitions to private investors has failed spectacularly. This is, among other things, thanks to the very united stance of all UEFA member associations. The events surrounding this project initiated by Gianni Infantino must now be fully clarified. The FIFA president acted unilaterally, without transparency and ultimately irresponsibly in the interests of football. Together with UEFE and other confederations, we must ensure that a fundamentally different culture is established at FIFA. A culture in which decisions are once again discussed and made by the members within the relevant bodies.
As of yet, despite Infantino having made a public statement back-tracking from FIFA's proposed investment plan and scrapping the idea altogether for now, the organization's president has yet to have mentioned the word sorry. Even large portions of employees of FIFA were against the proposed plan from the beginning and Infantino now seems to be in a damage control arch to try to do what he can to try to save his job as FIFA president instead of groveling with the footballing world as he should be.
