UEFA, Europe's soccer confederation, confirmed on Thursday that it was not making empty threats over FIFA president Gianni Infantino's plan to sell the World Cup off to private investors. In a statement titled "Statement on behalf of UEFA and its 55 national associations" posted on the confederation's website, UEFA laid down the gauntlet, using its immense power and money to, it hopes, block Infantino's latest greedy, stupid idea.

The key part of the statement reads as follows:

Europe’s position is clear. We will never lend this model our legitimacy. No one has the moral authority to sell what they merely hold in trust for the next generation.

As a result of today’s discussion, no UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.

Nobody should be in any doubt: UEFA and its national associations will oppose these plans with absolute determination.

Do you know how hard it is to get all 55 members of UEFA to agree on anything? And when that thing is a boycott of all FIFA international tournaments (including both the Women's World Cup in 2027 and the men's edition in 2030, which is set to be co-hosted in part by Spain and Portugal), this is nothing short of extraordinary. That's the magnitude of Infantino's idiocy. He's picked a fight he can't win, provided that UEFA holds on to its moral high ground here, for once. Given the strength of the statement, which also decries the way that this proposal even came about in the shadows of FIFA's most powerful executives, it does seem like UEFA is ready for this fight.

A boycott of this nature is UEFA's strongest play to block Infantino's proposal. Thanks to FIFA's voting set-up, the 55 nations in UEFA only make up about 26 percent of the 211 total members, and the confederation can easily be out-voted should enough non-European members buy into Infantino's promise of a quick cash infusion at the cost of the longevity of the World Cup. Europe is certainly not immune to money grubbing, but UEFA is in a unique position over every other confederation in the world. The organization has higher annual revenue than FIFA as a whole—this tracks logically; UEFA has massive competitions every year, including the Champions League, while FIFA mainly gets its money every four years from the very World Cup Infantino wants to sell—and though there are European countries that would love FIFA's money (Czech soccer president David Trunda already came out in support of the Infantino plan, though Czechia is part of the unanimous boycott), UEFA is best positioned to win an open war against FIFA.

UEFA taking such a strong stance might also embolden other confederations to do the same. Already, North America's CONCACAF and Asia's AFC have expressed doubts about the plan, and those are two traditional voting strongholds for Infantino. If he doesn't have those, then it becomes a lot harder to pass any proposal, never mind one with such huge risks. UEFA knows this, and so for once, it is taking its role as the proverbial leader in the clubhouse of world soccer seriously. As I stated on Wednesday, a World Cup without UEFA is a non-starter, at least if Infantino wants to keep raking in money anywhere near the neighborhood of the $15 billion the 2026 World Cup generated. It's certainly possible Infantino will throw a tantrum and continue plowing through with this proposal, but the other confederations know that the potential and almost certain drawbacks of further pissing off UEFA—no Europe in the World Cup, or the nuclear option of a full withdrawal from FIFA—are not worth the short-term gains from Infantino's plan.

This was UEFA's best move to make in order to stop the man who used to be its own second-in-command, and now the ball is in FIFA's court. Will Infantino be cowed by a unanimous rejection of his plan by his own continental confederation, or is UEFA vs. FIFA about to be the defining battle for the future of international soccer? My money, and really the money of the entire soccer world, should be on the former, but Infantino's brazenness and naked greed, along with his egomania, might bring FIFA's whole house of cards crashing down. I won't say I'm rooting for that, but I won't be sad to see it go.