Why UEFA battles Gianni Infantino over two scarce resources

De FIFA-files investigation UEFA is openly clashing with Gianni Infantino over two scarce resources – calendar time and fan attention – ten years after the FBI arrested seven football bosses for World Cup allocation fraud.

Two scarce resources fuel the clash

The report, titled OnderzoekDe FIFA-files, explains that the European governing body sees the limited time on the playing calendar and the dwindling attention of supporters as the core of its dispute with the FIFA president.

Both organisations rely on these assets: UEFA schedules the Champions League and domestic leagues, while FIFA extracts revenue from the quadrennial World Cup (WK) and its commercial rights.

Infantino’s attempted World Cup sale

According to sport journalist Niels VleminckxSportjournalist of HLN10, Gianni Infantino tried to sell the World Cup on his own, proposing that Donald Trump’s entourage acquire 20 percent of the tournament’s commercial rights for roughly 5 billion euros.

The plan sparked immediate outrage, with the European federation issuing a scathing statement that called the deal a “shady, back‑room transaction”.

Economic battle over calendar and attention

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin responded with an ultimatum: a total European boycott of all FIFA tournaments, threatening to keep stars such as Mbappé, Bellingham and Yamal away from the World Cup.

Earlier tensions surfaced in May 2025 when Infantino arrived three hours late to a FIFA congress after a meeting with Trump in the Middle East, leaving 211 members waiting.

When Somali referee Omar Artan was barred from the United States during the World Cup, Ceferin immediately invited him to officiate the European Super Cup between Paris Saint‑Germain and Aston Villa.

Ceferin later warned, “We cannot continue on this path. Secret plans devised by faceless individuals do not serve football. Stopping the plan is a victory, but the rebuilding of trust in FIFA has only just begun.”

Financially, UEFA consistently generates 30‑50 percent more revenue per four‑year cycle than FIFA, with the Champions League delivering billions each season, while the World Cup provides a single, massive cash influx.

FIFA’s new Club World Cup, expanded to 32 teams with a prize pool heading toward 2 billion dollars, is intended to capture the same commercial share, and Chelsea alone earned over 98 million euros from the previous edition.

Ceferin’s reforms of the Champions League into a “Swiss‑model” with a 2.47 billion‑euro prize pool aim to counter FIFA’s ambitions, but the battle over time and attention shows no sign of easing.