Ceferin criticises Infantino at EFC assembly in Copenhagen, says "the emperor is naked"
Aleksander Ceferin, Uefa president, used an address to the European Football Clubs general assembly in Copenhagen on 29 September 2026 to attack his embattled Fifa counterpart Gianni Infantino, criticise the failed Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) project and declare "the emperor is naked".
He told club chiefs it was "time to say 'enough'" and did not name Infantino directly while making his case; Ceferin drew on the event's Copenhagen setting to compare recent episodes in world football to Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes, citing the peace prize awarded to Donald Trump, last summer's Folarin Balogun affair and the FFE scheme.
Ceferin invoked the Andersen story directly in the assembly, saying: "An emperor is persuaded that he is wearing magnificent clothes – clothes which, he is told, only the foolish or unfit cannot see," Ceferin said. "His court goes along with it. Until a child simply says aloud what everyone can see: the emperor is naked. Perhaps the moral of the story is this: convenient words cannot change uncomfortable realities."
He criticised proposals he said amounted to selling parts of football's future, adding: "Selling part of football's future does not become development because you call it development. Putting a fait accompli in front of national associations does not become democratisation because you call it democratisation, however big the cheque is. And secrecy does not become consultation because you call it consultation."
Ceferin addressed hypothetical club-level misconduct to illustrate his point, saying: "Imagine one of your senior executives secretly negotiating away control of your club's crown jewels," he said. "You didn't know. Your board didn't know. Your players and fans didn't know. And by the time you find out, the deal is almost done. What would your board do? "Imagine that he creates a peace prize for a political leader, without his own board having any say over its creation or its recipient. Then, that same political leader calls during the biggest competition in the world to complain about a decision on the pitch. The rules say one thing. The phone rings. Then the decision changes. "How many times would this have to happen at your club before the board says: 'enough'? I think it is time to say 'enough'. No office, no title and no amount of power gives anyone the right to sell the future of football."
The speech came amid an intensifying dispute between Uefa and Fifa: Fifa accused Uefa of waging a "misinformation campaign" and sought to persuade a US court to reject Uefa's request to receive documents for use in a planned criminal complaint against Infantino.
EFC chair Nasser al-Khelaifi used his own address to propose expanding club representation beyond Europe, saying "now is the time to create World Football Clubs" and adding later: "We are more than proud and happy if we can help and contribute outside of Europe for our colleagues from different clubs in the world."
Senior figures within Uefa remain adamant that a candidate to oppose Infantino in the Fifa election next March must be found before the 18 November deadline for nominations, and Nasser al-Khelaifi — who has been mooted in the past as a potential contender — conclusively ruled himself out of the Fifa presidency in the Danish capital, saying: "I have zero interest in Fifa, zero agenda or ambition to be there," al-Khelaifi said. "I don't think I'm the right guy for this position. I'm enjoying what I'm doing, having fun. Fifa, not for me."