UEFA, AFC and Concacaf call for independent review of FIFA World Cup plan

The call appears in a joint open letter signed by AFC President Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, Concacaf President Victor Montagliani and UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin, together with the three bodies' general secretaries, Datuk Seri Windsor John, Philippe Moggio and Theodore Theodoridis. The Confederation of African Football, CONMEBOL and the Oceania Football Confederation were not among the signatories.

The review should be carried out by a fully independent third party rather than by FIFA, its staff or any stakeholder inside the game, the letter says, and the FIFA administration should have no role in conducting it. The signatories also repeated an earlier instruction that all relevant documents and records be preserved.

According to the letter, FIFA has treated the matter as a breakdown in communication, while the confederations regard it as a failure of judgment. They state that the proposal was advanced on a compressed timeline, without meaningful consultation, and pushed toward a deadline before associations could review its terms, a sequence they describe as designed to limit scrutiny. In their account, attempting to sell an interest in the World Cup was wrong in principle and amounted to a breach of trust with the institutions FIFA exists to serve.

The letter is also critical of a recent leadership meeting in Morocco. Citing FIFA's own account, the signatories note that only one elected official took part, that no FIFA Council members or member associations were invited, and that those present came from what they call the management committee, made up of senior FIFA employees. The letter does not name the individual whose conduct it criticizes.

FIFA set out its position in a media release issued on August 5 after talks in Rabat. The organization said Secretary General Mattias Grafström and the members of the FIFA Management Board present reaffirmed their full support for President Gianni Infantino as the only official elected by the 211 member associations. FIFA said mistakes over the FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal were acknowledged and that the process should have been handled differently, but stated that everything done complied with its regulatory framework. The proposal is off the table, according to the release, and a review will be conducted with a report presented to the FIFA Council at its next scheduled meeting.

The confederations say the dispute is not about money, and that decisions already taken collectively, including the expansion of competitions and World Cup allocations, are not being revisited.

Earlier, Qazinform reported that FIFA had dismissed criticism directed at its president, Gianni Infantino, saying it comes from figures who lacked backing among the organization's member associations