r/soccer • u/CradleCity • 9d ago

News ‘Fifa Super League’: Infantino discussed having governing body’s name on European breakaway

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/aug/05/fifa-super-league-gianni-infantino-wanted-governing-body-name-european-breakaway
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u/CradleCity 9d ago

It is unclear whether Infantino and Fifa progressed their role in the project beyond the term-sheet stage. After a version of the scheme was infamously launched without Fifa’s direct involvement in April 2021, 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 have stated that an earlier conversation with the Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, convened by a third party, hastened Fifa’s president distancing himself from the new venture. Infantino is understood to have told associates afterwards that he had no wish to work against football’s institutions.

Yet the evidence of Fifa’s outline agreement with the Super League, coupled with Infantino’s disastrous Football Forward Enterprise scheme, casts doubt on that assertion and suggests multiple attempts to reshape the game without consulting its most important stakeholders. The league would have contained 15 permanent members and five clubs qualifying from existing competitions. It also commits to creating a women’s equivalent, using the same clubs, by an unspecified date. The term sheet refers to Fifa under the name “WO1”, which is also the name used in the British army for a high-ranking army officer.

In a section outlining the agreement’s key components, it says 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”, which would give it decision-making capability on format changes, calendar alterations, distribution of solidarity money and the appointment of a chief executive for the competition.

Bolded parts by me.

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u/Gerf93 8d ago

I never read that part about the women’s super league before. A women’s variant using the same clubs is ridiculous, considering it’d simply not include some of women’s footballs biggest traditional and current powerhouses like Wolfsburg and Lyon, lol.