Infantino held talks to rebrand proposed breakaway as 'Fifa Super League', term sheet shows
Gianni Infantino held talks about rebranding the proposed European breakaway competition the "Fifa Super League", according to a term sheet dated October 2020. The document shows Fifa staff were involved and that Fifa was prepared to sideline its member associations in pursuing the project.
The term sheet proposes renaming any new competition under Fifa branding and outlines a partnership of at least 12 years between Fifa and the Super League, including a joint venture to run commercial operations. It links the Super League directly to an iteration of Fifa’s expanded Club World Cup, described in the paper as the "global club competition", which would be held annually over an enshrined three-week period and staged as a straight knockout. The paper is non-binding but is presented as the precursor to a definitive contract, and it is unclear whether discussions progressed beyond the term-sheet stage.
The document refers to Fifa under the name "WO1" and records that the Super League "is open to discuss naming the competition WO1 SL". It also confirms Fifa would be "granted a preferred equity stake in the Super League", a position that the term sheet says would give the governing body decision-making capability on format changes, calendar alterations, distribution of solidarity money and the appointment of a chief executive for the competition.
Under the proposal the league would contain 15 permanent members and five clubs qualifying from existing competitions, and it commits to creating a women’s equivalent using the same clubs by an unspecified date. Clubs participating in the Super League would have been required to join the World Football Club Association (WFCA), the short-lived representative body launched by Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez, and Real are described in the documents as key drivers of the scheme before they announced an agreement with Uefa in February this year.
Senior figures in European football are reported to have been shocked by plans set out in the term sheet to shrink the number of international windows, squeezing them into two fortnight-long spaces each year, and the earlier proposal also notes "reduction of leagues" as a point for discussion. The term sheet states that "a new international match calendar" devised by Fifa, the Super League and "other relevant stakeholders" would be reviewed and implemented with Fifa’s agreement.
Infantino is identified among a number of Fifa staff involved in the project and is understood to have been fully aware of its progression. After a version of the scheme was launched without Fifa in April 2021 and ultimately scrapped following large-scale protests, Infantino addressed Uefa’s congress in Montreux saying his organisation could "only strongly disapprove the creation of the Super League"; multiple sources say an earlier conversation with Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, convened by a third party, hastened his distancing.
The documents sit alongside other privately backed proposals linked to Infantino’s leadership: the coverage notes his Football Forward Enterprise scheme and recalls that in 2018 he pressed a $25bn offer from SoftBank to create an expanded Club World Cup and global Nations League, a plan that failed to gain support after opposition from Europe. It is unclear whether Infantino and Fifa progressed their role beyond the term-sheet stage; Fifa was approached for comment.
