The brawl over a failed plan to partially privatize soccer’s international governing body, FIFA, spilled into U.S. courts Thursday. A rival soccer organization launched a bid to subpoena the proposal’s chief financial backer: Josh Kushner, brother-in-law of President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump.
The Union of European Football Associations, a soccer consortium that runs the Champions League and has emerged as a prominent critic of FIFA leadership, asked a federal judge in Manhattan to approve subpoenas demanding testimony and records about the “FIFA Forward Enterprise” plan from Kushner and his venture capital firm, Thrive Financial.
Lawyers for UEFA said Kushner’s account and documentation about the deal are needed for the league to file a criminal case in Switzerland against the other mastermind of the $20 billion partial privatization proposal: FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
UEFA plans to claim that Infanto and potentially others engaged in “criminal mismanagement” of FIFA “arising out of the secretive structuring, valuation, financing, and marketing of a transaction that inflicted direct and concrete injury on FIFA’s reputation, governance authority, and commercial relationships to the detriment of FIFA as well as its 211 members, including UEFA’s 55 member associations,” attorney Andrew Levander wrote in the 50-page court application.
UEFA’s lawyers contend that Kushner, who earlier this month announced a deal to acquire the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team for $12.5 billion, had a unique role in developing the plan to tap private capital to expand the revenue streams for FIFA. The Zurich-based athletic body is best known for staging the World Cup but has also been plagued by a series of corruption scandals over the years.
“Thrive and Kushner are among the small number of counterparties in a position to know, from the investor side, when the transaction was discussed, with whom, on what terms, and what representations were made regarding FIFA’s internal management approvals,” Levander added.
UEFA’s court filing emphasizes that the organization is not targeting Kushner for prosecution. “Neither Thrive nor Kushner is an anticipated defendant in the contemplated Swiss criminal proceeding,” Levander wrote.
UEFA’s discontent with Infantino built up steadily leading up to the 2026 World Cup. As Infantino grew closer to Trump, the global soccer chief created the FIFA Peace Prize and awarded it to the American president without input from the 37-member council that oversees the Zurich-based FIFA.
During the tournament, UEFA criticized FIFA’s decisions to sideline Somali referee Omar Artanafter U.S. border officials denied him entry and to delay U.S. striker Flo Balogun’s one-match suspension following Trump’s phone call to Infantino.
But Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup, which nearly all FIFA members learned about through media reports, pushed UEFA to lead a successful revolt that forced FIFA to abandon it. The House Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, has also shown an interest in investigating the deal, calling it “a kickback hat trick” by Infantino. UEFA in a statement said that as its member federations huddled Thursday ahead of the Champions League draw, they “unanimously mandated the UEFA President and Administration to pursue every available institutional, political and legal avenue necessary to secure fundamental reform, restore proper limits on presidential authority and ensure that FIFA is once again governed as an institution — not around one individual.”
UEFA also confirmed that it was ending its boycott of FIFA competitions after receiving written assurances from FIFA that the plan to sell-off the World Cup would not be revived.
Spokespeople for the White House and Kushner’s Thrive Capital did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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