The Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, has launched a scathing attack on his embattled Fifa counterpart Gianni Infantino, taking aim at the failed Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) project and other recent scandals, and declaring that “the emperor is naked” and that “it is time to say ‘enough’”.
Addressing the European Football Clubs (EFC) general assembly, Ceferin did not name Infantino directly but left little doubt about his view that Fifa’s leadership must change. Drawing on the event’s location in Copenhagen, he invoked Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes to frame his assessment of Infantino’s conduct, with clear reference to the peace prize awarded to Donald Trump and last summer’s Folarin Balogun affair alongside the FFE scheme.
“An emperor is persuaded that he is wearing magnificent clothes – clothes which, he is told, only the foolish or unfit cannot see,” Ceferin said. “His court goes along with it. Until a child simply says aloud what everyone can see: the emperor is naked. Perhaps the moral of the story is this: convenient words cannot change uncomfortable realities. Selling part of football’s future does not become development because you call it development. Putting a fait accompli in front of national associations does not become democratisation because you call it democratisation, however big the cheque is. And secrecy does not become consultation because you call it consultation.”
Ceferin then turned to the hundreds of club representatives in the room, suggesting that Infantino’s behaviour would not survive scrutiny inside their own organisations. “Imagine one of your senior executives secretly negotiating away control of your club’s crown jewels,” he said. “You didn’t know. Your board didn’t know. Your players and fans didn’t know. And by the time you find out, the deal is almost done. What would your board do?” He continued with a second scenario: a peace prize created for a political leader without the board having any say over its creation or its recipient, after which that same political leader calls during the biggest competition in the world to complain about a decision on the pitch. “The rules say one thing. The phone rings. Then the decision changes.”
He asked how often such episodes would have to recur before a club board reached its limit, adding: “I think it is time to say ‘enough’. No office, no title and no amount of power gives anyone the right to sell the future of football.”
The exchange between the two governing bodies had already escalated on Tuesday, when Fifa accused Uefa of waging a “misinformation campaign” and trying to influence the race for its presidency, urging a US court to reject Uefa’s request to receive documents for use in a planned criminal complaint against Infantino.
Attention is also turning to who might oppose Infantino at the Fifa election next March. Senior figures within Uefa remain adamant that a candidate must be sourced before the 18 November deadline for nominations, and the EFC chair Nasser al-Khelaifi had been mooted in the past as a possible contender. In Copenhagen, however, he ruled himself out conclusively. “I have zero interest in Fifa, zero agenda or ambition to be there,” Al-Khelaifi said. “I don’t think I’m the right guy for this position. I’m enjoying what I’m doing, having fun. Fifa, not for me.”
Al-Khelaifi has ambitions to expand the reach of his own body. In his speech to the general assembly he said “now is the time to create World Football Clubs”, explicitly stating that a representative organisation including clubs beyond Europe should be formed. “We are more than proud and happy if we can help and contribute outside of Europe for our colleagues from different clubs in the world,” he said later.