Meeting in Monaco during the 2026/27 UEFA club competition draws, National Association representatives serving on the UEFA Executive Committee and European FIFA Council members were joined by presidents of European National Associations to discuss what they described as the “continuing crisis at FIFA”.

The resulting statement represents one of the strongest collective challenges yet to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, moving the debate beyond the abandoned commercial proposal towards fundamental questions about presidential authority, institutional governance and the future leadership of world football.

A call for fundamental reform

At the centre of the statement is FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), the controversial proposal to sell an interest in the FIFA World Cup to external investors.

The project was eventually abandoned following widespread opposition, but UEFA’s representatives have made clear that withdrawal of the proposal is not sufficient.

They described the episode as exposing “a profound failure of judgement, an abuse of presidential power and a conception of leadership incompatible with the duties of the highest office in world football”.

Those present unanimously mandated UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin and the UEFA administration to pursue institutional, political and legal avenues aimed at securing “fundamental reform”, restoring limits on presidential authority and ensuring FIFA operates as an institution rather than around one individual.

FIFA cannot investigate itself

Perhaps the most significant demand concerns independent scrutiny of what happened.

UEFA is calling for a genuinely independent external review of FFE, with access to relevant documents, communications and decision-making records.

Its statement is unequivocal:

“FIFA cannot investigate itself and expect the football community simply to accept its conclusions.”

That demand has particular significance in the context of the wider debate around governance within international sport.

Global Sustainable Sport recently explored precisely this issue in Who Governs the Governors of Sport?, introducing the GSS Governance Stress Test to examine not simply whether organisations have governance structures, but whether those structures continue to function effectively when the organisation — and particularly its leadership — comes under pressure.

One of its five tests is independence: whether scrutiny can operate genuinely independently of those being investigated.

UEFA’s latest intervention brings that question firmly into the current FIFA crisis.

Europe suspends World Cup withdrawal

There has, however, been movement between FIFA and UEFA.

FIFA has confirmed in writing that FFE has been “irrevocably and permanently withdrawn” and will not return “in any other shape, construction, name or form”.

Following that assurance, UEFA has provisionally suspended the threatened withdrawal of European teams from FIFA competitions during the coming season.

But UEFA stressed that its position remains under constant review and could be reconsidered if circumstances change.

The immediate threat to participation may therefore have receded. The political and governance confrontation clearly has not.

A challenge to Infantino’s leadership

The statement goes further still by directly addressing FIFA’s future leadership.

Those present concluded that trust in the office of FIFA President “has been broken” and called for new leadership capable of rebuilding it. Should Infantino seek another mandate, UEFA says it will work with other confederations to ensure Member Associations are offered a credible alternative committed to integrity, accountability, development and institutional change.

UEFA also challenged the relationship between FIFA’s substantial financial reserves, development funding and presidential influence.

Its argument is that development funding is an institutional responsibility rather than something controlled through presidential patronage.

“Development is an institutional obligation – not a presidential favour,” the statement said, insisting that no Member Association should have to choose between accessing resources and exercising independent judgement.

That may ultimately prove to be the most important element of UEFA’s intervention.

FFE has been withdrawn and the immediate threat of a European boycott has eased. But the argument has now moved beyond one commercial proposal.

It has become a debate about where power sits within FIFA, how that power is scrutinised and whether world football’s governing institution can command the confidence of those it exists to serve.

As UEFA concluded:

“FIFA must once again be governed as an institution serving football – not operate as an instrument of individual power.”