CONCACAF concerned about FIFA Forward Enterprise

CON­CA­CAF has ex­pressed con­cern over FI­FA's pro­posed FI­FA For­ward En­ter­prise, say­ing it learned about the ini­tia­tive through me­dia re­ports rather than through of­fi­cial gov­er­nance chan­nels.

In a state­ment on Wednes­day, the re­gion­al foot­ball body of which Trinidad and To­ba­go is a mem­ber, crit­i­cised what it de­scribed as a lack of due process and con­sul­ta­tion over the pro­pos­al, which would es­tab­lish a new FI­FA-owned com­mer­cial sub­sidiary to man­age the gov­ern­ing body's me­dia rights, spon­sor­ships and ma­jor tour­na­ments while sell­ing up to a 20 per cent stake to pri­vate in­vestors. FI­FA says the move could raise up to US$4.2 bil­lion for foot­ball de­vel­op­ment while al­low­ing it to re­tain full con­trol of gov­er­nance and com­pe­ti­tions.

"Con­ca­caf was on­ly made aware of this mat­ter through me­dia re­ports and, sub­se­quent­ly, via a me­dia re­lease," the con­fed­er­a­tion said.

It added that it was "deeply con­cerned by the lack of due process" and dis­ap­point­ed that de­tails of the pro­pos­al had been made pub­lic be­fore dis­cus­sions with the rel­e­vant gov­er­nance bod­ies and stake­hold­ers.

Con­ca­caf said foot­ball's lead­ers had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to act in the best in­ter­ests of the sport, with every de­ci­sion guid­ed by "good gov­er­nance, ro­bust process­es and long-term stew­ard­ship."

The state­ment is the lat­est crit­i­cism fac­ing FI­FA Pres­i­dent Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no's ad­min­is­tra­tion over the pro­posed en­ter­prise. UE­FA, the Asian Foot­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion and sev­er­al na­tion­al foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tions have al­so com­plained they were not con­sult­ed be­fore the plan was an­nounced, rais­ing con­cerns about trans­paren­cy, gov­er­nance and the speed with which mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions are be­ing asked to con­sid­er the pro­pos­al.

FI­FA has de­fend­ed the ini­tia­tive, say­ing any launch of the FI­FA For­ward En­ter­prise re­mains sub­ject to ap­proval by its mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions and the FI­FA Coun­cil, with all pro­ceeds ear­marked for ex­pand­ing foot­ball de­vel­op­ment fund­ing world­wide.