TAKING THEM TO COURT: UEFA takes legal action against Infantino, FIFA, Kushner

Gianni Infantino might not be smiling these days in response to his failed World Cup plan. (Michael Lewis/FrontRowSoccer.com)

A day after it said it won’t boycott future World Cups in response to FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s failed and controversial plan, UEFA has decided to go another route.

In the courts.

The European soccer governing body has taken legal action in New York against FIFA, Infantino and Thrive Capital. The latter was the lead investor in Infantino’s $20 billion plan in which he was ready to sell 20 percent of future World Cups. Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is the founder and managing director of Thrive Capital.

The Times of London and Front Office Sports reported on such action on Thursday.

This is just the start of a legal process. UEFA is willing to go through the discovery process to obtain information from the three aforementioned parties in so it can take the case to Swiss authorities as part of a criminal complaint. FIFA’s headquarters is in Switzerland

If things fall into place, UEFA would be have authorities charge Infantino and possibly other FIFA officials.

“Under the terms Infantino announced, those investors stood to acquire a permanent financial interest in FIFA’s commercial arm for $4.2bn, implying an absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20bn, a figure that was neither the product of an open, competitive auction, nor tested by any independent valuer,” UEFA’s complaint reads, according to ……

That $4.2 billion figure could be a “fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit,” the complaint read.

“In truth, it was a vehicle for Infantino and that small circle to acquire a permanent stake in and otherwise profit from FIFA’s most valuable assets to the detriment of FIFA, its members, and other parties within the football family,” the complaint continued.

“Infantino pushed the plan through internal FIFA approval only days earlier at a hastily convened meeting where a limited number of FIFA’s management officials and employees — some of whom had never heard of the plan — were given mere hours to sign off on an unprecedented multi-billion dollar scheme.”