Europe’s leading clubs threatened not to participate in future Club World Cups unless Gianni Infantino withdrew his Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme, issuing their ultimatum hours before the plan was scrapped. In a letter to the Fifa secretary general, Mattias Grafström, the influential European Football Clubs (EFC) group warned that its cooperation with future tournaments would hinge on Infantino backing down. It said the threat would hold unless a joint venture between EFC and Fifa – a framework for which has already been agreed – is completed before television rights can be sold for the 2028 Women’s Club World Cup.
The letter, dated 31 July and signed by the EFC chief executive, Charlie Marshall, said Infantino’s actions could constitute a “substantial breach” of the bodies’ existing memorandum of understanding (MoU) and suggested this could be grounds for its termination. It floated the idea that EFC and its clubs may push back against the international match calendar and its player release rules, which are crucial to ensuring national team tournaments can function. Infantino shelved the privately backed Football Forward Enterprise (FFE) in the early hours of 1 August after widespread condemnation.
Fundamental to EFC’s complaints was the impression FFE would bring all broadcasting, commercial and sponsorship rights under its own umbrella. The letter asked Fifa to confirm this and said it would take decisive action if these elements were not included in the long-proposed joint venture, whose creation is enshrined in the MoU and intended to involve managing the commercial side of global club competitions. It witheringly wrote that the tie-in had, “unlike the FFE proposal, made no meaningful progress over the past year”.
EFC already has a similar joint venture with Uefa, named UC3, which was launched in 2025. A potentially incendiary section read: “Unless a fully operational Fifa-EFC CWC joint venture, with exclusive authority over, among other things, all commercial and operational matters, is established well ahead of the women’s 2028 Fifa CWC rights cycle, EFC will not support – and its member clubs will not participate in – any future edition, including the women’s and men’s 2028 and 2029 Fifa CWC.” In theory the threat still holds although Fifa, in a response to EFC’s letter since Infantino climbed down, is understood to have promised a swift meeting to keep the joint venture on track. EFC’s position followed concerns raised by a vast number of clubs around Europe, who were angered by the lack of consultation around the design of FFE.
One major European club expressed concerns in its own letter saying it would support EFC in any “firmer collective action” if necessary and called for “more rigorous and transparent governance processes”. Any European withdrawal from Club World Cups would in practice mean those tournaments could not run. EFC and Fifa operated last year’s Club World Cup, the first to take place with 32 teams, using a short-term prototype for any future joint venture.
No hosts have yet been announced for the new-look Women’s Club World Cup or the next edition of the men’s tournament in 2029. EFC’s letter also raised the continuing delay, first reported in February, in distributing £185m of solidarity money to clubs that did not participate in the Club World Cup. Transparency over the event’s financial performance was also requested.
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