FIFA challenges UEFA requests for world cup investor plan documents

FIFA says legal applications made by UEFA to access documents related to FIFA's controversial private investor plan are part of a "smear campaign" against the global governing body. UEFA is applying through the American courts for discovery of evidence and documentation linked to FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), a private company which it was envisaged would run the World Cup and other FIFA competitions.

FIFA accused European soccer body UEFA of a “smear campaign” in a court filing on Thursday concerning FIFA President Gianni Infantino's failed plan to sell stakes in the World Cup and other competitions. Last week, UEFA filed requests for discovery of evidence connected to Infantino's proposal in three U.S. courts. “While these applications are styled as legal pleadings with captions and docket numbers, they are little more than press releases in further support of UEFA’s smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership,” FIFA said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Colorado.

FIFA says legal applications made by UEFA to access documents related to FIFA's failed $20 billion plan to sell a stake in the World Cup are part of a "smear campaign" against global soccer's governing body.

Attorneys representing Fifa have hit back at Uefa’s request for discovery in a US federal filing earlier this week. The lawyers called Uefa’s legal efforts “little more than press releases in further support of [a] smear campaign against Fifa and its leadership” and requested the judge assigned to the case dismiss the request. The filing requests that Fifa US, a subsidiary business unit of Fifa, be permitted to officially opposite the request for discovery by 30 September.

FIFA has accused UEFA of a "smear campaign" and a "fishing expedition" after European football's governing body asked US judges to force it to hand over documents related to its failed World Cup investor plan.Global soccer body FIFA's divisive plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to investors, unveiled in July, triggered a huge backlash across the sport, with UEFA threatening to boycott the World Cup unless the plan was scrapped.