Uefa has threatened legal action over Gianni Infantino’s scrapped plans to sell off stakes in Fifa competitions to private investors.
Infantino’s leadership had already been publicly questioned by football’s governing bodies in Europe, North and Central America and the Caribbean, with Uefa and Concacaf releasing statements criticising the plans.
And on Monday, Wales became the first nation to publicly withdraw backing for Infantino’s bid to continue as Fifa president.
Fifa and Infantino wanted to create a commercial subsidiary to run its main events, including its World Cups, and external investors would have been able to buy stakes in it.
World football’s governing body said it would “invite third parties to make minority, non-controlling investments” in a new subsidiary called Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE).
As first reported by The Telegraph, Uefa said in a letter to Infantino “it is actively considering legal action, arbitration, and/or regulatory complaints (together, the ‘proceedings’) arising out of and in connection with the FFE plan proposed by Fifa”.
Uefa added it wants “immediate steps to identify, locate and preserve all documents and electronically stored information described in this notice that are in your or Fifa possession, custody or control.
“These obligations arise independently of any internal retention policy you or your organisation maintain and supersede any routine document destruction or deletion policies that would otherwise apply.”
BBC Sport has approached Fifa for comment.
More to follow.
