Fifa has launched a robust legal challenge against Uefa’s recent efforts to obtain discovery through the American court system. In a filing submitted earlier this week, Fifa’s legal team dismissed Uefa’s actions as “little more than press releases in further support of [a] smear campaign against Fifa and its leadership,” and formally requested that the presiding judge reject the petition.
The dispute stems from four separate subpoena requests filed by Uefa in various US courts at the end of August. Uefa is seeking access to internal documents and communications as it weighs potential criminal proceedings against Fifa president Gianni Infantino. These requests specifically target information related to the controversial Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan, involving entities such as Joshua Kushner, his investment firm Thrive Capital, and JP Morgan.
Fifa has requested that its subsidiary, Fifa US, be granted permission to officially oppose these discovery requests by September 30. Last week, a judge in Florida approved Fifa’s request to intervene in one of the four active cases.
Representing Fifa, attorney H. Christopher Boehning argued that the discovery requests should be denied or significantly delayed, noting that Uefa currently lacks any active legal proceedings against the governing body in Switzerland. The filing further contends that Uefa is attempting to “use the legal process and public US filings to expose information that [Fifa] is obligated to keep confidential under [its] governing rules.”
The document also challenges Uefa’s legal standing, asserting that the organization is contractually bound by Fifa statutes to resolve disputes through arbitration rather than initiating criminal complaints in Switzerland. Furthermore, the filing suggests that Uefa’s opposition to the FFE plan is rooted in economic protectionism.
According to the filing, the FFE proposal threatened Uefa’s market dominance by strengthening football in developing nations, which would theoretically reduce the reliance of global talent on European leagues. To support this perspective, the document cites Cameroon federation president Samuel Eto’o, whom it describes as “one of the greatest African players in history.” The report also notes that “If soccer is strengthened in the developing world, global competition increases, which ultimately reduces Uefa’s market power and provides more competition for its flagship tournaments,” the document reads. The report also notes that “By raising funds to allow some of Fifa’s smaller member associations to better develop soccer, FFE would lead to more players from those nations choosing to represent their countries of origin and playing in their home leagues rather than playing abroad.”.
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