Ceferin Says Trust in World Football Has Not Returned: the Crack FIFA Left Behind Is Bigger Than a Withdrawn Proposal

3 a.m. in Incheon. Old headphones, cold coffee. I rewound the recording of the Portugal Football Summit for the third time just to hear one line from Aleksander Ceferin again: “Not everyone places the game above their own ambitions.”

He never named FIFA. He never mentioned Gianni Infantino once in the whole speech. But the silence right after that sentence ran longer than usual. When the entire press room falls quiet, I know I have just touched the sore spot. No name was needed; everyone in the room knew where that line was pointing.

This was the first time Ceferin spoke publicly about the matter since Infantino proposed an independent review of how world football’s governing body makes decisions. The way he chose to speak — no names, no direct accusation, only three pillars erected and a description of exactly how they were smashed — is the part worth analysing.

The underlying story is not new, but the scale is. FIFA proposed selling a 20% stake in its commercial rights, including the World Cup, to private investors. Not a one-season broadcast deal, not a single tournament’s worth of licensing. A permanent slice of ownership over the most profitable asset world football holds.

The reaction came fast and from several directions at once, which is rare in international football. UEFA objected. The Asian Football Confederation objected. Concacaf objected. UEFA’s 55 member associations — essentially the whole of Europe — stated flatly that they would not take part in FIFA competitions if the proposal went through. In July, FIFA withdrew the plan.

Ceferin called it a victory. “Football is not for sale,” he said. “That is the message UEFA has carried for years, and I am certain this summit will carry it further.”

It sounds clean. The interesting part sits elsewhere: the proposal was withdrawn, and trust did not come back on its own. Ceferin himself admits it. “The project that shattered the unity of world football may be abolished, but the trust it broke has not returned, and repairing it is our work now.”

Strip the rhetoric away and three layers sit on top of each other.

What was threatened here does not stop at a single deal. The World Cup is the only asset in sport whose value lies not in cash flow but in universality. The moment a slice of World Cup ownership belongs to an investment fund, every decision about scheduling, format, field size and host timing has to pass through a board table where shareholders sit. Shareholders do not care which national team is appearing at a World Cup for the first time. Shareholders care about return on capital.

The reaction of Europe’s 55 associations deserves more attention than it got. The threat to boycott FIFA competitions is the bluntest instrument European football has used in decades. It worked. It also laid bare something uncomfortable: the world football system has no mechanism for resolving disagreement other than one side threatening to flip the table.

Infantino is handling the hardest part. He wrote to FIFA’s 211 member associations and to members of its Council, setting out possible changes in response to the criticism, including how the organisation handles major projects. But he chose to put the idea of a review to the Council rather than announcing it himself. That is a calculated move: announcing it yourself means owning it, sending it to the Council means sharing it. The FIFA Council meets again on 15 October.

The fight has shifted from “sell or not sell” to “who gets to decide.” And on that pitch, nobody is entirely clean.

This is where I have to argue against myself, because I have watched Ceferin long enough not to idolise him.

The UEFA he represents is not a neutral body standing outside the game. UEFA is an enormous commercial force with the Champions League, the Europa League, the Nations League and a shelf of other competitions. When Ceferin says “football is not for sale,” he is defending an order in which UEFA sits at the centre of the distribution of money and power. Moral language here has a political function. I once bet that Germany would be eliminated and the whole world laughed at me for a week, and I have also watched the most noble-sounding organisations produce the prettiest sentences to keep their seats.

What worries me is that both sides are using the same toolkit. FIFA proposes to sell an asset. UEFA threatens a boycott. FIFA responds with an offer of a governance review. UEFA calls it a question of trust. This loop produces no transparency mechanism at all. It produces a ceasefire, and every ceasefire has an expiry date.

But where could I be wrong?

I could be wrong if I reduce UEFA’s motives entirely to power. There is another possibility, simpler, and I have to admit it. Those 55 associations include small federations that would have very little voice if world football were divided up by shareholding. For them, “football is not for sale” is a survival position, not a negotiating tactic. If that is the case, Ceferin is telling the truth, at least in part.

And if I am wrong, the error will show up in one very specific signal: whether UEFA applies to itself the transparency standard it demands FIFA meet.

The stadium is empty, but I can hear the hearts of thousands of fans beating in one rhythm, and that rhythm does not care who sits in which president’s chair. What I want to see in the coming months is not a leadership statement. It is a structure.

My prediction, for you to track and verify. Before the FIFA Council meets on 15 October, no independent voting mechanism will be announced. After the meeting, there will be a document on “process improvement” in soft, non-binding language. And within 18 months, a new variant of the same investment proposal will return under a different name — gentler, and smelling more of football.

People hate me because I say it first, then remember me because I was right. This time, I genuinely hope I am wrong.