Meet the top lawyer challenging Gianni Infantino’s Fifa power play
Uefa has enlisted a leading US white-collar expert as legal tensions escalate over Gianni Infantino’s unsuccessful Fifa World Cup sell-off.
US legal giant Dechert’s former Chair, Andrew Levander, has been nabbed by the European body, which informed Zurich-headquartered Fifa his client was “actively considering legal action, arbitration, and/or regulatory complaints”.
Fifa has promised that raising $4bn from the sale of around 20 per cent in the vehicle, Fifa Forward Enterprise, would treble its payouts to all 211 member associations and asked them to vote on the scheme in September. But after details were leaked, the bid received an abundance of backlash resulting in Infantino doing a 180 on his plan.
On Monday, the legal letter, which named 18 Fifa executives, was revealed, which said legal proceedings were “reasonably anticipated” as it is alleged Infantino’s plan was “fundamentally incompatible with the proper governance of football” and, as a result, has instructed the executives named to preserve relevant documents and electronic communications.
The core of the dispute involves the $4.2bn Fifa Forward Enterprise plan, which would have relied heavily on funding from Joshua Kushner’s New York venture capital firm, Thrive Capital. And according to Telegraph Sport, Kushner, Greg Maffei, JP Morgan and OpenEconomics also received legal letters from Uefa’s lawyers.
The body opted for a US law firm as it gives it jurisdictional leverage for its probe and potential legal action in this matter.
US law firm tapped by Uefa
Levander, a well-known litigator in the US, has frequently represented prominent Wall Street executives and global businesses, including former Barclays CEO Robert Diamond, former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, Lehman Brothers’ outside directors, and Michael Rigas. He also represented the Special Board Committee of Apollo in its 2020-21 investigation of the relationship between Apollo’s founder and former CEO and Jeffrey Epstein.
He has been at the BigLaw giant since 2005, serving as Chair from 2011 until 2023 in the New York office of the Philadelphia-headquartered law firm.
This is not the first time Fifa has faced legal action on the other side of the Pond. The 2015 corruption scandal involved the US Department of Justice and the FBI, which arrested and charged Fifa officials over corrupt conduct.