European football's governing body is pushing hard through American courts to obtain records for a prospective Swiss criminal case against FIFA President Gianni Infantino. At the center of this battle is an abandoned $4.2 billion commercial rights plan known as FIFA Forward Enterprise. The proposal aimed to sell a permanent equity stake in World Cup commercial streams to private investors, spearheaded by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital. When intense backlash forced Infantino to withdraw the plan in August, it did not end the controversy. Instead, it triggered a cross-border legal war.
UEFA deployed Section 1782, a United States statute that allows foreign litigants to obtain evidence from entities residing or found within federal districts. Subpoenas and document requests targeted Florida-based FIFA subsidiaries alongside Thrive Capital in New York. FIFA subsidiaries swiftly moved to intervene and block the requests, characterizing UEFA's actions as a targeted smear campaign. UEFA fired back in Manhattan federal court, arguing that these American corporate entities have no legal standing to act as stand-ins for Swiss leadership.
The Anatomy of a Secretive Proposal
To understand why European soccer officials are willing to fight this out in American courts, one must look at how the transaction was built. According to court filings, Infantino and a tight circle of advisers developed the commercial transfer over the course of more than a year. Standard governance protocols were bypassed. The FIFA Council, regional confederations, and the 211 member associations were kept entirely in the dark.
The plan envisioned placing the commercial and operational rights of the men's World Cup, women's World Cup, and the Club World Cup into a new corporate structure. Private equity investors would pay $4.2 billion for a permanent slice of the pie, valuing the commercial arm at roughly $20 billion. Critics inside and outside the sport immediately pointed out that this figure vastly undervalued the crown jewels of global football.
Internal friction was immediate. Reports surfaced that even FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom had been excluded from drafting the agreement. Carlos Cordeiro, Infantino's senior adviser on global strategy and a former president of US Soccer, resigned in protest, labeling the transaction a bad deal for the long-term future of the sport. Faced with mounting fury from member federations, FIFA pulled the plug on August 1.
The American Litigation Front
With the plan dead, the focus shifted to accountability. UEFA announced it was weighing a criminal complaint in Switzerland for alleged criminal mismanagement. To build that case, European officials turned to the American judicial system to compel testimony and document production from entities connected to the deal.
The legal skirmish involves multiple federal jurisdictions. In New York, UEFA targeted Thrive Capital Management and its founder Joshua Kushner. In Colorado, subpoenas pointed toward former Liberty Media Chief Executive Greg Maffei, who served as an adviser on the transaction. In Florida, filings named two regional corporate entities: FIFA (Americas) Inc. and FWC2026 US Inc.
Those Florida subsidiaries attempted to halt the discovery process, arguing that the applications amounted to little more than a fishing expedition designed to damage leadership. FIFA officially backed this stance, telling courts that UEFA is weaponizing legal filings to wage a public relations campaign.
UEFA's latest response filed in Manhattan federal court cut straight through those arguments. European lawyers argued that the subsidiaries possess no direct legal interest in the matter because they are not targets of the contemplated Swiss proceedings. Furthermore, UEFA contended that allowing corporate subsidiaries to intervene prematurely violates standard Section 1782 procedures, which generally permit initial ex parte applications to proceed before allowing targets to file motions to quash.
Political Pressures and Presidential Stakes
This friction occurs against the backdrop of an upcoming leadership election. Gianni Infantino plans to stand for a fourth term at the FIFA Congress, but his political coalition is fracturing. Major European powerhouses are actively pushing back, and traditional alliances are straining under the weight of governance disputes. The French Football Federation and other bodies have expressed deep dissatisfaction with how central decisions are managed.
The involvement of high-profile financial and political figures adds another layer of complexity. Joshua Kushner’s firm managed the investment vehicle designated to lead the private equity group, drawing intense media scrutiny given familial ties to Washington politics. Yet, private equity players are discovering that global sports politics operates under a different set of rules than traditional corporate acquisitions. As Kushner noted in a statement to industry reporters, backers failed to anticipate the intense political dynamics of international football.
Federal judges in New York and other districts must now decide whether to grant the broad evidence-gathering requests or throttle them under corporate motions to intervene. Whatever the bench decides, the documents already unearthed during the initial phases of the dispute have permanently altered the internal power dynamics of world football. The governance structure of global sport faces an extended period of scrutiny.
