Uefa Confirms Departure Payment Amid Infantino Allegations

Uefa has confirmed it paid a six-figure “departure payment” and covered MBA fees for a former female employee who is alleged to have had a relationship with Gianni Infantino during his time as the organisation’s general secretary.

The payment, first reported by the Daily Telegraph, was made when Infantino was still at Uefa, years before he became Fifa president in 2016. His camp has branded the allegations “categorically untrue”.

In a statement, Uefa said it “can confirm a departure payment was made to the individual in question, coupled with the payment of fees for a MBA course at a local business school”. The governing body stressed that the settlement “was in line with the regulations that existed for departing staff at the time”.

Those rules, Uefa added, no longer stand in the same form. “Such regulations have been tightened since 2016 and the current staff regulations – which apply to all UEFA employees at whatever level – reflect those found in a modern, high-profile organisation.”

The woman, who has not been named, was reported to have received a six-figure sum as part of her exit. No details have been given by Uefa about the circumstances of her departure beyond the confirmation of the payment and education support.

Infantino, who spent 16 years at Uefa and served as general secretary from 2009 until his election as Fifa president in February 2016, now finds the past and present colliding. As questions resurface about his previous tenure in Nyon, he is already facing heavy fire over his latest project at Fifa headquarters.

For more than a week, Infantino has been under intense pressure over a controversial proposal to bring private investors into a new company that would run Fifa’s competitions, including both the men’s and women’s World Cups. The idea was pitched as a way to unlock major new revenue streams. It instead triggered a political storm.

Uefa and two other continental confederations rejected the plan outright. In Europe, resistance hardened quickly. The notion that the World Cup – football’s crown jewel – could be partially handed to private capital alarmed administrators and inflamed long-standing tensions between Zurich and Nyon.

On Wednesday, Infantino secured a show of support from Fifa’s management board after a meeting in Morocco. He emerged with backing, but also with the need to say sorry. An apology was issued over the way the process had been handled, an admission that the rollout had been mishandled even if the broader vision remained.

Uefa, though, has not softened. Its threat that all 55 European member associations could boycott Fifa competitions unless the investment plan is scrapped is still on the table. The confederation made that clear again on Thursday, stating that the previous day’s developments “change nothing”.

The stakes are obvious. On one side stands the Fifa president, intent on reshaping the commercial model of the global game. On the other, a European bloc prepared, at least in words, to consider the nuclear option of walking away from Fifa events.

Into that already volatile landscape drops the revelation of a historic departure payment from Uefa to a former employee, tied to allegations Infantino emphatically denies. The payment itself may have been “in line with the regulations” of the time, as Uefa insists, but its timing and context sharpen the spotlight on a president already fighting on multiple fronts.

The Press Association has contacted Fifa for comment. For now, Infantino has the formal backing of his management board and the public denial of “categorically untrue” allegations. Uefa has its tightened regulations and an unresolved threat of boycott.

World football’s power struggle, and the scrutiny of the man at its centre, is only intensifying.