LONDON, August 6. /TASS/. President of the world’s governing football body, FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has admitted that he made a mistake trying to implement the FIFA Forward Enterprise investment plan worth an estimated $20 billion, the Financial Times reported citing Infantino's letter to the FIFA Council members.
In his address written following an emergency FIFA session on Wednesday in Morocco, Infantino acknowledged that the controversial scheme to attract private investment "should have been handled differently."
The letter states that FIFA President Infantino and Secretary General Matthias Grafstrom "sincerely apologize" for their mistakes and "commit to them not happening again." FIFA’s chief also pledged to carefully analyze what had happened.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced a proposal on July 30 to sell a share of the FIFA World Cup commercial rights to private investors under a scheme that could potentially bring it tens of millions of dollars. The plan involves the establishment of a company that will control the major men's and women's FIFA tournaments - the FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. The organization consulted with people close to the administration of US President Donald Trump prior to voicing this decision.
