The Ceferin-Montagliani Letter: A $2.1 Billion Proposal and an Independent Review of FIFA's Reserves

In November 2026 I stood beside the outer lane of a provincial stadium, hosting a youth athletics meet. The organising chief pulled me over to look at the sponsorship sheet. The money was not in the medals hung around those children's necks. The money was in the rubber under their feet. A cracked track produces no records, no matter how good the coach is.

I remembered that afternoon while reading the Reuters report dated 18 September: Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA, and Victor Montagliani, president of CONCACAF, co-signed a letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. The letter carries two demands. An independent review of FIFA's reserves. And a proposal that every member association receive at least 10 million US dollars across the 2027-2030 cycle.

FIFA has 211 member associations. Multiplied out, that proposal equals roughly 2.1 billion US dollars.

That is the rubber under world football's feet. And it has just been sealed inside an envelope.

Ceferin and Montagliani sit inside the highest power structure of the sport. Both serve as FIFA vice-presidents. The letter was addressed directly to Infantino, and Reuters said it had seen the document. FIFA was approached for comment.

An internal document that lands on a major news agency's desk rarely walks out on its own. It is walked out. Publishing it before FIFA can respond puts FIFA's leadership in the position of answering inside a timetable chosen by somebody else. Losing one microphone taught me that a single signal can carry further than a whole studio. Here, a leaked letter plays the role of the loudspeaker before any meeting is convened.

The technical context hides in a word most readers skim past. The proposed 10 million dollars per association sits on top of the FIFA Forward Programme, not in place of it. FIFA Forward is the committed development funding channel for member associations. If the new money is added, FIFA must find it in fresh revenue, draw it from reserves, or cut something else.

That is why the demand for an independent review of reserves travels together with the proposal to distribute money. One side asks where the money currently sits. The other says where it should go. The two questions are bound by a simple multiplication: 10 million dollars times 211.

FIFA operates on revenue from World Cup media rights, commercial contracts and sponsorship. Its reserves are accumulated funds held for stability, contingencies and development. The size of those reserves is not stated in the Reuters report, and that gap is the single largest blind spot in the entire story.

FIFA is holding a reserve fund that its own vice-presidents want examined by outsiders.

Without data on the reserve size, nobody can say whether the 2.1 billion dollar proposal is feasible, reckless, or impossible. An independent review would open the balance sheet to stakeholders. For an organisation that has lived through governance crises and criminal investigations, opening the balance sheet is a political act rather than a bookkeeping procedure.

The real fight will erupt around the scope of the review. Who appoints the auditor, who writes the terms of reference, who sees the full version and who receives only a summary. A narrow review confirms what the leadership already said. A broad review can expose how FIFA allocates commercial contracts and how provisions are classified across multiple years.

The timing of the letter is not accidental. The 2027-2030 cycle is still years from the publication date, long enough to negotiate, long enough to build coalitions, and long enough for member associations to table demands of their own. A proposal tabled too late is only a reaction. Tabled early, it becomes an agenda.

In athletics, the money that decides medals is spent four years before the final, on the track, the jump pits, the nutrition programme. In swimming, it sits in water treatment systems and qualifying lane widths. Football runs on the same logic, differing only in sequence and scale.

Based on my experience watching matches at youth tournaments across Southeast Asia and China over more than four decades, one pattern holds fairly steadily. Teams with training pitches that do not flood after rain keep their individual technique at 15. Teams that train on concrete are left with nothing but running and duels by 18.

That is why the 10 million dollar figure deserves serious debate. For an association in Oceania or Central America, 10 million dollars over four years can cover most of a youth development budget. For a large European association, the same sum disappears inside one week of wages at a mid-table club. One payment, two entirely different meanings.

211 member associations are 211 votes in FIFA decisions. A 10 million dollar proposal speaks directly to that constituency in the language it understands best. The stands may be empty, but the match still has its own heartbeat, and FIFA's institutional heartbeat follows the congress calendar.

The transmission channel here is fairly clear. FIFA reserves and revenue sit upstream. FIFA governance, the confederations and 211 member associations sit in the middle. Development programmes, youth football, infrastructure and commercial confidence sit downstream. If money flows downward, the biggest impact lands on small associations, where 10 million dollars can pay an entire generation of youth coaches.

Financial dependency is a double-edged trap. An association that draws most of its budget from FIFA finds it hard to say no to FIFA in votes on formats, calendars or media rights. A steady 10 million dollars every four years is a long-term contract that requires no signature. That is the part of the story few people care to raise in a congress hall.

The position of the remaining confederations will decide how far this travels. AFC, CAF, CONMEBOL and OFC had not spoken in the Reuters report. If they publicly join the same side, pressure on FIFA's leadership shifts from a letter into a bloc. If they stay silent, the letter remains two signatures.

Three scenarios are imaginable. FIFA rejects both demands, and the distance between the president and two vice-presidents becomes public. FIFA accepts a limited form of review and negotiates a lower or phased distribution. Or FIFA accepts a full independent review and commits to a substantial distribution for 2027-2030. Every scenario leaves a trail, because every negotiation about money leaves minutes.

The least discussed element is where the transparency demand originates. The two signatories run two confederations, and confederations themselves operate financial machinery that is not always open. I aim at structures, not individuals. An oversight mechanism only carries value when it applies to the proposer as well as the proposed.

The second blind spot sits in unconditional money. Ten million dollars per association, with no restriction on use, can turn into bonuses for the senior men's national team, travel costs for officials, or a new stadium in a capital city. All three generate media imagery. None of them teaches an 11-year-old how to cushion a ball with the inside of the foot. The physicalisation trend in the U18 bracket that I have watched for years does not come from a shortage of money. It comes from money being tied to youth results instead of technical quality.

I once hosted a segment connecting track and field with esports at the Tokyo 2026 Olympics, where former hurdler Liu Xiang debated the League of Legends player Karsa about reflex time and jungle decision windows. That debate left a larger question behind: what does a professional gamer retiring at 24 live on. In football, the equivalent question is where the money goes and who is responsible for the years after the starting line.

An independent review is a demand about power, not purely about accounting. And money reaching an association does not automatically become technique for a child. Those two sentences stand side by side inside the same letter.

At this age I no longer run faster, but I know which way the wind blows. The letter of 18 September blows from the direction of 211 member associations.

I will follow this story to the end, the way I once followed every summer 2026 transfer window session and every time my microphone was cut. What matters is not FIFA's first response. What matters is whether any other confederation publicly takes the same side, and whether the size of FIFA's reserves is disclosed within the next 12 months.

If no data is published, the 2.1 billion dollars stays inside the envelope. And the track stays cracked.