European soccer leader Aleksander Ceferin says trust still broken after FIFA controversy

European soccer leader Aleksander Ceferin said Wednesday it is "our work" to repair the unity and trust broken by FIFA president Gianni Infantino's failed World Cup sell-off plan.

The UEFA president, in rare public comments two months into the divisive global rift in soccer, did not cite Infantino by name but said "not everyone places the game above their own ambitions."

"The project that shattered the unity of world football may be abolished, but the trust it broke has not returned, and repairing it is our work now," Ceferin said in a video message to an audience of soccer and business executives in Lisbon.

Ceferin led UEFA's backlash in July that helped stop Infantino's plan to sell at least 20 per cent of FIFA's future commercial rights for $4.2 billion to investors led by Josh Kushner, the brother of U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Though Infantino dropped the plan within days, UEFA said it would work toward removing him from office -- before or at the FIFA presidential election in March -- and preparing a criminal complaint against him in Switzerland for alleged financial mismanagement.

"Trust in our sport rests on three pillars: unity, transparency, and governance that serves the many, not the few," Ceferin, a Slovenian lawyer, said Wednesday.

"In recent times, all three were disregarded by people who had sworn to protect them," he said.

FIFA and Infantino have said the plan to create a FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) commercial spinoff was to accelerate development of soccer worldwide, outside the wealthy power base of Europe.

Ceferin has ruled out being a candidate in the FIFA election, where Infantino seeks a fourth and final term in office through 2031 to complete a 15-year