Ceferin declares Infantino's FIFA privatisation plan 'dead' and worse than the Super League

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has delivered his most direct public rebuke yet of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, declaring the latter’s abandoned plan to sell stakes in FIFA competitions to private investment firms “dead” and comparing it unfavourably to the ill-fated European Super League.

Speaking on the Rest is Politics podcast, Ceferin said: “I think this plan is even worse than the Super League plan. Super important clubs wanted to do their own league, which is wrong, and would destroy football. But in this case, football would be literally sold. I’m absolutely sure that the plan is dead. It’s hard to imagine what kind of people would sell the sport that belongs to everyone. We will not allow that to happen.”

Infantino’s proposal, which would have brought private equity money into FIFA-owned competitions, triggered a fierce backlash from across the global game. UEFA threatened to boycott all FIFA events, including the World Cup, and was joined by Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation in a joint letter accusing FIFA of a “fundamental breach of trust” and “deception”. Infantino subsequently withdrew the plan, but the political fallout has continued to mount.

Ceferin revealed he had no advance warning of the proposal, learning about it through the media while on holiday with his family. He added that Infantino has not contacted him since the controversy erupted. “They play on, you know, ‘[how] arrogant Europe is against us: They have enough money, but I help the small and the poor’,” Ceferin said. “But I think someone should remind him that he is a European, and that he was supported by UEFA, which he forgot.”

The fallout has been broad. UEFA has publicly stated it has lost confidence in Infantino, and the football associations of all four British home nations have withdrawn their support for the FIFA president, who previously served as UEFA general secretary before taking the top job at world football’s governing body in 2016.

With FIFA’s presidential election scheduled for March, speculation over a potential successor to Infantino has intensified. Ceferin, however, has ruled himself out of the running. “I’m not interested because of two reasons,” he said. “One reason is that I love UEFA and I love working here, and I think that at a certain point it’s time also to enjoy life a bit. And the second point is, my credibility is much, much, much higher if I’m not interested in the position.”