Uefa planning to check if Infantino tried to sell stakes in World Cup on cheap

Uefa is planning to commission an independent valuation of Fifa’s World Cup sale plans after concerns that Gianni Infantino agreed to sell the tournament’s future profits to a private equity firm at below the market rate.

The European governing body is unmoved by the written apology issued by Infantino to Fifa’s 211 member associations on Tuesday after crisis talks in Morocco. It will continue to push for his removal, with its tactics including further scrutiny of a proposal the president belatedly conceded was “a mistake.”

The Fifa Forward Enterprise plan that was abandoned after four days last week involved a 21% stake being sold to Thrive Capital for $4.2bn. The US private equity firm is led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Uefa played a key role in Fifa’s U-turn, which was triggered by all 55 member associations threatening last week to boycott the World Cup and other tournaments, and is now seeking to establish how the $20bn valuation of Fifa’s commercial assets was worked out.

Uefa has spoken to several market analysts seeking opinions regarding an independent valuation and a formal study is likely to follow once the storm surrounding Infantino’s immediate future has passed.

Last week, the Fifa sales deck circulated details that did not contain any information of the valuation process or any evidence of a competitive tender. “We need to find out if they were selling the World Cup at a knockdown price,” a source with knowledge of Uefa’s plans said. “How did they get to $20bn? Was it a robust process?”

Fifa’s revenues for the four-year cycle that culminated in this summer’s World Cup were $15bn, leading the market analysts to suggest that $20bn was a low valuation, particularly as the proposal did not appear to include any provisions to prevent expansion and the creation of new tournaments.

“The World Cup is the only genuinely global mass entertainment event so an increase of $5bn on current revenues seems low to me,” the source said. “This looks like a low-ball offer. The obvious financial upside of further expansion that the investors would demand – more teams, more regular World Cups, more Club World Cups – is not priced in.”

Uefa has also called for a thorough review of Fifa’s governance, as well as threatening them with legal action. Fifa is attempting to put on a united front despite scathing internal criticisms of the sell-off plan from leading figures including the secretary general, Mattias Grafström, the chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, and Arsène Wenger, head of football development.

Infantino appeared alongside Grafström at a Women’s Africa Cup of Nations group game between Malawi and Zambia in Morocco on Wednesday after attending crisis talks in Rabat. That was followed by Fifa issuing a statement saying the president retained the “full support” of the organisation.

Such apparent support indicates there will be no further dissent from within Fifa and the push for change will have to come from outside the organisation.

Fifa was approached for comment.

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