UEFA declares loss of confidence in FIFA President Gianni Infantino
By Luke Oluoch, August 1, 2026UEFA has publicly withdrawn its confidence in FIFA President Gianni Infantino after the world’s governing body plans to controversially sell a stake in its competitions to private investors
In a strongly worded release issued on Saturday, August 1, 2026, the European football governing body welcomed FIFA’s decision to drop the proposal, which would have seen private capital invested in tournaments including the World Cup.
“The proposal was unanimously rejected by UEFA’s national associations and by many other federations and confederations of all sizes around the world, whose job it is to protect football,” UEFA said.
Football is not for sale
The confederation thanked “fans, leagues, clubs, players, individuals, associations, and confederations” as well as “prime ministers, heads of state, and commentators” for opposing the scheme. “They have demonstrated to the FIFA President that football is not for sale,” the statement added.
In one of the most direct rebukes of a sitting FIFA president, UEFA, which threatened to boycott FIFA events such as the World Cup. described the process as “secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game.”
“We must identify those responsible and hold them to account,” UEFA said, confirming it will launch a review “in the coming days and weeks” with associations and other confederations. “That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table.”
The most direct shot came at Infantino himself. UEFA said:
“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”
The statement also referenced Infantino’s 2016 election pledges that earned him a place at the helm of FIFA.
“When Gianni Infantino asked for the trust and the votes of FIFA’s member associations to elect him as their president in 2016, he said, ‘The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA President. It’s your money. You are the national associations, and the money of FIFA has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.”
Rebuilding trust
“On both these promises, he has failed to deliver,” UEFA argued. “The shabby, backroom, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through was anything but transparent. And with reserves standing at over $5bn, he has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.”
Instead of selling equity, UEFA said FIFA should use existing resources. It announced it will “begin work immediately with partners and stakeholders all over the world” to propose reforms to the FIFA Forward program to get money to grassroots.
“We must start to use some of that money that is sitting idle in FIFA’s bank account to deliver the kick-start that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of FIFA. But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.”
Moving past the controversial plans, UEFA called the withdrawal “a victory for the whole game,” but warned the work is not over.
“The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in FIFA has only just begun.”
The statement marks one of UEFA’s most direct rebukes of a sitting FIFA president, and it remains to be seen how the ongoing disagreements between the two football bodies’ ideological views pan out in the coming days.