FIFA has apologized for how it handled its proposed FIFA Forward Enterprise project, confirming the initiative has been withdrawn at an emergency meeting held in Rabat on Wednesday, the football governing body said in a statement, in an episode that briefly rattled relations between FIFA’s leadership and its member associations.
The statement, released after the meeting, said FIFA’s Secretary General and members of the FIFA Management Board reaffirmed their full support for President Gianni Infantino, while Infantino in turn reiterated his backing for the FIFA administration, signaling an effort to project unity after the episode drew unwanted scrutiny of the organization’s internal decision-making.
FIFA acknowledged that the process surrounding the Forward Enterprise proposal, which drew criticism from member associations after details of the plan emerged in the media, had been mishandled from the outset. Officials agreed the initiative should have been managed differently and said it was never intended for the FIFA Council or the organization’s 211 member associations to feel excluded from the decision-making process that shaped the proposal.
The governing body also recognized that additional mistakes were made after the proposal was leaked to the press, compounding the initial handling errors and fueling further criticism from national federations who felt blindsided by the plan’s emergence in public reporting. A separate letter sent to the FIFA Council and member associations included a formal apology for those mistakes, along with a commitment to ensure similar issues do not occur again.
FIFA said it will now conduct a full review of the process that led to the botched rollout, with the findings to be presented at the organization’s next scheduled Council meeting. The Forward Enterprise proposal itself has been officially abandoned.
