UEFA has gone to a US federal court in Florida seeking documents from two American FIFA companies, as groundwork for criminal proceedings it is preparing in Switzerland against Gianni Infantino. It opens a second front in a dispute that, twenty-four hours ago, looked as though it had been settled by negotiation.
What is actually being asked for
The application, made without notice to the other side, targets FIFA (AMERICAS), Inc. and FWC2026 US, Inc. — two Florida-registered FIFA entities. UEFA wants documents and witness testimony on how the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise transaction was, in its words, "conceived, structured, valued and approved".
The intended destination is Switzerland. UEFA says it and other parties are preparing criminal claims there under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code, which covers criminal mismanagement, naming Infantino and "possibly other FIFA officials and advisors". The substance of the complaint is procedural: that the plan to move the commercial rights to the men's and women's World Cups and the Club World Cup into a new subsidiary was developed in secret, without the FIFA Council, the confederations or the member associations being consulted.
Two distinctions are worth keeping straight. The American filing is a request for evidence, not a lawsuit. The Swiss criminal case is being prepared, not yet brought.
A correction to what we wrote on Tuesday
When UEFA's federations withdrew their boycott threat on Wednesday, we described that as leaving Infantino's critics with the March ballot and nothing else. That was wrong within a day. Dropping the boycott did not end the pressure; it moved it from the calendar into the courts, where it does not depend on persuading 211 member associations to vote a particular way.
The exposure runs through the tournament companies
The detail an events business should notice is which entities are being served. FWC2026 US, Inc. is a delivery vehicle — the kind of local operating company set up to stage a tournament, hire its staff, sign its venue and supplier contracts. It is now a target for discovery in a governance fight about assets it does not itself own.
Any organisation that stages large events across borders builds these structures, usually treating them as administrative plumbing. This is a reminder that they are also the places where a dispute at the top of the parent organisation becomes a concrete legal obligation lower down — one that lands on the people running the tournament, not the people who made the decision being litigated.
Source
Original summary by Proventier.