Ceferin, Infantino and the Forgotten Oath: Inside Football's Governance War

In the entirety of Aleksander Ceferin's statement about FIFA's plan to sell a stake in its commercial rights, the most notable detail lies in the silence. He does not mention Gianni Infantino by name. Not once.

The UEFA president, a lawyer who once practised in Ljubljana, a man who steered the European confederation through a pandemic and the Super League storm, chooses to speak of "those who swore to protect" football without naming anyone. After more than five decades watching this sport from the stands and from dimly lit corridors, I have learned that what a person in power chooses not to say often reveals more than what he does.

In the summer of 2026, I stood outside the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich when Swiss police raided it at dawn and led away seven football officials. Years later, FIFA's meeting room is still lit, still occupied by someone in the chair. The only thing that has changed is the way people speak about power — more polished, more discreet, and therefore harder to trace.

The proposal died, the fracture remained

The plan FIFA once harboured had only one public figure attached: 20%. The organisation intended to sell a 20% stake in its commercial rights — including those tied to the World Cup — to private investors. The financial terms were never disclosed. The identity of the prospective investors was never disclosed either. The proposal was dropped before any signature reached a contract.

What was left behind was not an empty space. It was a fracture.

Ceferin spoke, and his language was ethical rather than technical. He talked about those who "swore to protect" football, about whom the game must serve, about placing the sport above personal ambition. He did not name Infantino, and that restraint was itself a message. UEFA then assembled an opposition coalition with the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF.

On FIFA's side, Gianni Infantino wrote to all 211 member associations. He offered an external independent review of FIFA's governance frameworks. The offer did not persuade his critics. The 2027 FIFA presidential election is approaching, and every statement made now is read through the lens of a campaign that may have begun long before anyone declared candidacy.

What 20% actually means

It is worth stating plainly what sits behind that figure, because football has grown far too accustomed to hearing numbers without seeing the hand behind them.

Had the deal proceeded, FIFA would have created a profit-seeking entity with a direct interest in maximising World Cup revenue. That entity would have had an obvious incentive to push broadcast rights prices higher, to add matches, to expand tournaments, to turn the calendar into a continuous revenue machine. Every format change — from 32 teams to 48, from a four-year cycle to interleaved additional competitions — would have been viewed through the eyes of an investor awaiting dividends.

I have sat in press rooms where officials spoke of "the global growth of football" while the underlying decisions revolved around broadcast slots in the most populous time zones. That is the nature of this sport in the twenty-first century. Money appearing is not the problem. The problem is who gets to decide where money flows, and whether the decider answers to anyone at all.

The concern is not that FIFA wants more money. The concern is that a proposal of this weight reached serious discussion without passing through sufficient mandatory consultation.

Ceferin spoke of a breach of fiduciary duty. In legal language, that is a heavy charge. In political language, it is a way of positioning UEFA as the defender of football's collective interests against one man's ambition.

It is worth noting that no FIFA statute explicitly prohibits selling commercial rights to private investors. That legal gap is the structural weakness. When the law does not forbid, people can act. When procedure does not require consultation, people can bypass it. And when no one is obliged to explain, people can stay silent.

Where the governance vacuum sits

What remains unanswered is which FIFA body was bypassed. The FIFA Council is the primary governance body, composed of representatives from every confederation and responsible for major strategic decisions. But between Council meetings, a smaller group of senior officials — known as the Bureau — is empowered to act on the organisation's behalf.

If the proposal to sell 20% of commercial rights was pushed through the Bureau rather than the full Council, that is a way of circumventing the governance structure. If it went through the Council but with incomplete information, that is a procedural failure. Both possibilities lead to the same conclusion: FIFA's internal controls were not strong enough to stop a controversial proposal from advancing.

The independent review Infantino proposed has a structural problem: it was commissioned by him and would be examined by the FIFA Council — the body he leads. A check ordered by the person being checked, and assessed by that person's own institution, can hardly be called independent. The critics are right to be sceptical.

Meanwhile, the pressure on the two leaders is asymmetric. Ceferin can hold a principled, high-ground position because UEFA's institutional legitimacy is not under direct challenge. Infantino occupies the harder position: he must demonstrate genuine reform while not appearing to concede that the original proposal was wrong in principle. It is a stance in which every move can be read as an admission.

History does not repeat, but it keeps the same rhythm

I have watched football long enough to recognise that governance crises do not erupt suddenly. They accumulate.

In 2026, FIFA endured one of the largest corruption scandals in sporting history. Fourteen officials were indicted in the United States. Sepp Blatter resigned. An era ended, and a promise was made: FIFA would reform, would become more transparent, would serve football rather than its own machinery.

In 2026, twelve leading European clubs announced the European Super League. Within forty-eight hours, the project collapsed under a wave of opposition from fans, players and governments. UEFA played a central role in bringing it down, and since then Ceferin has positioned himself as the guardian of the open football model.

FIFA's plan to sell 20% of its commercial rights follows the same logic as the Super League: private capital seeking access to football's commercial assets, convinced that the sport is an under-exploited market. The difference is that this time, the entity behind the proposal is the very organisation supposed to protect football from such proposals.

The promise made to Balkan supporters, the promise made to children who lived in refugee camps in the 1990s, the promise that football still belongs to everyone — those promises were not settled with silver trophies, but by keeping the sport from being sold off piece by piece. When an institution swears to protect something and then negotiates the sale of part of that very thing, the gap between the oath and the deed becomes the centre of the story.

Who is speaking, and why now

Ceferin's statement must be read through the eyes of someone who has stood on both sides of the wall many times. He does not attack Infantino personally. He preserves the possibility of private negotiation. He leaves room for a face-saving resolution for both sides while maintaining public pressure.

That is calculated restraint, not magnanimity. And it serves UEFA well.

On Infantino's side, writing directly to 211 member associations is a deliberate move. He bypasses the confederations — mostly hostile — to speak directly to national associations, smaller bodies more dependent on FIFA funding. It is a way of rallying grassroots support to counter pressure from continental blocs. This strategy has been used many times in the history of international organisations: when the middle layer opposes you, go around it and reach the bottom layer.

The coalition between UEFA, the AFC and CONCACAF is a scaled-down geopolitical map of world football. Europe, Asia and North America — the three regions holding most of the sport's revenue and influence — stand on the same side. When the largest blocs speak with one voice, FIFA hears it. The notable element is the participation of the AFC and CONCACAF, because in many previous disputes they tended to choose neutrality or to lean toward the incumbents.

That shift has material causes. The confederations fear that if a private entity holds a stake in World Cup revenue, their future share will be squeezed. An investor takes dividends first, and only what remains reaches the federations. That is simple arithmetic, and it explains why a proposal about finance produced an alliance about politics.

The blind spot in the story everyone is telling

There is a blind spot in how this story is usually told: it is presented as a confrontation between good and evil, between those who defend football and those who want to sell it.

Reality is more complicated.

When UEFA places itself in the role of defender of collective interests, it also places itself under scrutiny. If UEFA calls for transparency at FIFA while its own decision-making structures are no more transparent, the moral argument wobbles. If UEFA opposes private capital entering football while its own European competitions grow increasingly dependent on money from investment funds and states, the opposition is selective.

The most counter-intuitive element of this entire affair is that the proposal failed not because it was defeated morally, but because it was defeated by institutional arithmetic. Had only a few federations objected instead of a coalition of three major blocs, the proposal's fate might have differed. Power calculation, not principle, saved it this time.

And that means: when the arithmetic changes, the proposal can return. Capital does not vanish after a single rejection. It waits, restructures, and comes back under another name, another form, another partner. The line between ethics and interest in football has never been clear, and this time is no different.

The line between ethics and interest

I sat in the stands in Moscow on 21 June 2026, when Croatia demolished Argentina 3-0 and Luka Modric, aged 32, ran more than eleven kilometres in a single match before scoring from outside the box in the 80th minute. I did not write about the scoreline. I wrote about how one person can conduct the rhythm of a collective without a baton, through humility and by making those around him play better than themselves.

That is the image I keep when I think about football. A conductor who needs no baton. A collective led by quiet sacrifice rather than declaration.

And then I compare that image with what is happening in the meeting rooms of Nyon and Zurich. There, nobody runs eleven kilometres. There, people send letters, issue statements, build coalitions and calculate timing. Football at its highest level operates on the logic of power, while at its lowest level it operates on the logic of belief. The distance between those two levels is where every governance crisis begins.

Lessons from empty stands

In August 2026, I was present at an almost empty Zhongshan Stadium to film a match involving the former Shenzhen side. Only 27 people occupied 25,000 seats. A 35-year-old goalkeeper saved a shot, turned to look at the empty stands, and whispered something to a teammate.

I recorded the sound of studs scraping grass, the sound of heavy breathing, the sound of a ball striking the crossbar. I then interviewed 15 older supporters by video call, asking what they remembered most about being unable to attend. None of them mentioned the score. They spoke of who they sat beside, of the singing before kick-off, of the feeling of belonging to something larger than themselves.

On the empty Zhongshan pitch, we hear the ball fall like a prayer. And in FIFA's corridors of power, where billion-dollar decisions are made behind closed doors, nothing is heard at all — except the sound of unanswered phone calls.

That is why I pay attention to what Ceferin does not say. In football, what is absent is often the most important part of the story.

What comes next

This crisis will not bring about FIFA's collapse. No formal sanction has been issued. No specific rule has been clearly violated. The risk here is reputational rather than structural.

Reputation, in football, is a form of currency. It determines whether sponsors renew, whether broadcasters pay a premium, whether national federations cooperate on new projects. A president whose legitimacy is questioned will find it harder to persuade partners to sign long-term deals.

Three scenarios are possible. The worst case: UEFA and its allies lose patience and threaten to build alternative international competition structures, like the Super League threat but at confederation level. The central case: a limited governance review is carried out, consultation requirements are added on paper without enforcement mechanisms, and tension persists until 2027. The optimistic case: genuine reform emerges, with more transparent decision-making processes and real limits on presidential authority.

No sign yet suggests the third scenario is near. But no sign yet suggests the parties are ready to escalate to the point of breaking the current competition structure either. In confrontations like this, stalemate is usually the most likely outcome — and also the most easily misread, because stalemate does not mean stability.

What I keep

Being 67 is not a time to leave the stands. It is a time to understand why football still flows in the veins, and why disputes like this matter more than a derby.

When people fight over control of a sport, what is being contested is the right to believe that the sport belongs to you — to a child in the Balkans playing on a potholed street, to a 70-year-old supporter in Shenzhen staying up until two in the morning to watch a European match, to a father in Toronto who wept while reading about Modric.

Those people are not in the meetings. They hold no stake in any deal. If football is one day sold off piece by piece without their knowledge, the forgotten oath will no longer be the story of Ceferin or Infantino. It will be the story of all of us — and perhaps of those who have not yet realised that a war is being fought behind the matches they still watch every weekend.