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UEFA, THE GOVERNING body of football in Europe, has said no European national teams will participate in any Fifa competitions until the proposal to sell off part of the body to investors is scrapped.
Football’s world governing body said on Tuesday it was seeking to create Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE), which it revealed would be responsible for bringing together the sale of Fifa’s commercial rights with the operational delivery of its tournaments.
The move was met with immediate outrage, with Uefa leading the way, saying it “crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross”.
In a scathing statement released today, the association said that “no Uefa national teams will participate in any Fifa competition for so long as these proposals remain alive”.
It said its position would not change “unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that Fifa will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership”.
“Nobody should be in any doubt: Uefa and its national associations will oppose these plans with absolute determination,” it said.
Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, said that FFE “is actually a proposal, an offer”.
“It’s part of a democratic process – a consultation process – and, above all, it is an opportunity but not an obligation,” Infantino said in a video released Wednesday evening.
“It is a golden opportunity to turbocharge the development of the game globally. But again, it is just an offer, not an obligation.”
In its statement today, Uefa rejected the characterisation of the process as “democratic”.
“It is both irresponsible and indefensible that a proposal of such significance for football was conceived in secret and brought to the brink of approval without any meaningful consultation with those entrusted with stewarding the game,” it said.
“This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdication of FIFA’s duty as the custodian of world football.”
*With reporting from AFP *
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