UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin sharply criticized FIFA President Gianni Infantino and the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, saying FIFA’s defense of the plan recalled Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Emperor’s New Clothes." Speaking in Copenhagen on Sept. 29, Ceferin said the emperor was naked and argued that labels such as development, democratization and consultation could not change the underlying reality. The proposal would have placed commercial rights to the men’s and women’s World Cups and Club World Cup in a FIFA-controlled subsidiary, with private investors allowed to acquire up to 20%. Infantino presented it as a way to increase funding for football development and said it would undergo consultation with FIFA’s 211 member associations, but the project was abandoned in July after widespread opposition, including from UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation. Ceferin disputed FIFA’s description of the process as democratic and consultative. UEFA separately seeks U.S. court discovery for a planned Swiss criminal complaint alleging that Infantino developed the proposal secretly, bypassed governance structures and undervalued FIFA’s commercial rights. FIFA denies those claims, says the proposal required approval and oversight from member associations and the FIFA Council, and has argued that UEFA confused a $20 billion equity valuation with an enterprise value of well over $30 billion. Infantino has proposed an independent review of FIFA’s decision-making processes ahead of his reelection contest in March next year.