Ceferin and Montagliani urge FIFA to release an extra $10m to each MA from its $6bn reserves

September 18 – FIFA vice presidents Alexander Ceferin and Victor Montagliani have sent a letter to FIFA president Gianni Infantino saying that FIFA could comfortably give each of its national association members an extra $10 million each over the 2027 to 2030 cycle without substantially impacting FIFA’s $6 billion reserves or needing to sell-off its rights to private equity investors.

Ceferin (pictured left) and Montagliani (pictured right) are the presidents of UEFA and Concacaf but the letter has been sent in their capacities as FIFA vice presidents. It has also been sent to other confederation presidents asking for their support.

The AFC, which has previously sat alongside FIFA and UEFA in the request for more transparency regarding Infantino’s failed attempt to sell off World Cup rights, is very likely to continue its support.

The big question is whether Africa, South America and Oceania – generally the confederations with the most financially needy members – will similarly support the suggestion.

In that respect it is a major challenge to Infantino’s supporter base that is underpinned by the illusion that FIFA’s grant money comes as the gift of the FIFA president rather than as a statutory and constitutional right as part of their FIFA membership.

The letter also begs the underlying question of why Infantino was looking to sell off FIFA’s commercial rights in the first instance, sweetened with the offer of a one-off $20 million reward to federations who signed up in return for giving their agreement to the FFE sell off on what was a very short deadline.

The letter follows previous comments from Montagliani who has consistently argued that FIFA does not need to raise any extra cash and that its reserves of $6 billion can easily accommodate significantly larger amounts of money being released to member associations. After all, FIFA is their association and they are its owners – the money already belongs to them, it is only administered by FIFA’s executive.

A family business

“We are writing to propose that our Confederations jointly examine a question we believe deserves the attention of the whole football family: how much of FIFA’s accumulated financial reserves could responsibly be released directly to its Member Associations (“MAs”),” says the letter.

“FIFA Forward Enterprise (“FFE”) was presented to the 211 MAs as a proposal under which a “share” of FIFA’s competitions would be sold to outside investors in order to provide far greater resources for football development…

“Our analysis now raises an important question as to whether the proposed transaction was necessary to deliver greater resources to the MAs. FIFA already has the capacity to deliver substantially more to its MAs from its own balance sheet – without any sale of interests in its competitions, and without asking anything of the MAs in return.”

It is a major debunking of Infantino’s insistence that FIFA needs more outside money to give to its member associations. Ceferin and Montagliani argue it doesn’t.

They point out that the $6bn reserves are the largest in FIFA’s history and easily enough to carry FIFA through the post World Cup deficit years.

“Our analysis indicates that FIFA should make at least USD 10 million available to each of its 211 MAs over the 2027-30 cycle for investment in infrastructure and football development – an aggregate of approximately USD 2.1 billion,” says the letter.

They say the funding should be a one-off release of reserves via the FIFA Forward Programme. FIFA’s reserves would at no point fall below the $1.5 billion, “around 50% more than the minimum reserve level FIFA itself budgeted for 2023-26.”

An extra $10m per MA could just be the start

Ceferin and Montagliani say that a larger distribution may be possible. Crucially they say this decision is for the FIFA Council to make, as is any further distributions for the 2031-34 cycle. Essentially the message to Infantino is that it is not a decision for the FIFA president or the FIFA executive.

The letter says their analysis is “deliberately conservative” and “necessarily preliminary”.

“FIFA must of course remain financially strong… But FIFA currently holds billions of dollars in accumulated reserves. These resources belong to football and exist to serve the game and its 211 MAs. Prudence should not prevent a careful examination of whether a portion could responsibly be released to the extent those reserves exceed FIFA’s foreseeable needs,” continues the letter.

In a pointed  reference  to Infantino and his executive team’s untamed use of  restricting or slowing distribution of grant money to force compliance to their agenda – in essence bribing member association support with their own money – the letter is unequivocal.

“Releasing part of these reserves would demonstrate that MAs should not have to choose between development and good governance; between investment and integrity; or between financial support and the ability to consider proposals on their merits. Development is an institutional responsibility of FIFA – not a matter of individual discretion.”

The timetable proposed is short with the two confederation chiefs saying that the analysis should be completed jointly by all six confederations, and the final distribution figure recommended put forward for consideration to the next FIFA Council  meeting –  “FIFA’s proper governance process”.

The next FIFA Council meeting is scheduled for October 16. It will be the first time Infantino has faced his top decision making since the start of the crisis he created.

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