Uefa’s 55 member associations will hold an emergency meeting later this week to discuss Fifa’s controversial proposals to sell stakes in its major competitions.
Football’s world governing body has said it wants to create a new commercial subsidiary to run its main events, including the World Cup, and external investors will be able to buy stakes in it.
That has prompted fears that too much influence in those competitions will be handed to private investors, although Fifa says it will enable more money to be distributed to football associations around the globe.
European football’s governing body took the remarkable step of issuing a response to Fifa’s plans before they had been published on Tuesday, responding to initial reports in the Financial Times and the Times as it condemned the plans, saying they had “crossed a line”.
The meeting will be held virtually and offer the opportunity to work out a plan of action.
Given the strength of feeling – the Football Association says it was not consulted before Fifa released its proposals shortly after Uefa’s statement was made public – it would be a surprise if the possibility of a boycott was not at least raised.
While Uefa knows it only accounts for a quarter of Fifa’s 211-country membership, the body includes most of the world’s most successful teams.
Six of the eight quarter-finalists – and the winners, Spain – at this summer’s World Cup were European. In the 2022 and 2018 editions the figures were five and six respectively.
Uefa knows any competition Fifa puts together would be far less valuable if its members were not involved.
Fifa’s argument that it is compelled to look at proposals that would help it grow the game globally has led to fears that, in the search for greater revenue, its major competitions – the men’s and women’s World Cup and corresponding Club World Cup – could be played more often and include more participants.
That would have huge implications for the football calendar, which is already squeezed, partly because of the expansion of European club competitions.
One senior source within the English game told BBC Sport that the threat posed by Fifa’s plan is one of the biggest the game has faced and is on a par with the European Super League, which created such controversy in 2021 and was scrapped within 48 hours.
It seems improbable that Fifa will back down in the same manner.
Fifa said its plan is to extend global development funding to $10bn (£7.5bn). It is also planning to offer each of the 211 member associations the opportunity to access up to $20m (£15m) in one-off capital.
This latest escalation extends a difficult relationship between Fifa and Uefa, which responded angrily to attempts to host the World Cup every two years when the idea was floated by former Arsenal manager and Fifa’s current chief of global football development Arsene Wenger in 2021.
Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin boycotted the World Cup final this month in protest at a number of controversial moves.
They included US President Donald Trump stepping in to help turn USA forward Folarin Balogun’s one-match ban into a suspended ban, allowing him to play in the last-16 encounter with Belgium.
