It has been an embarrassing week for FIFA; particularly its president, Gianni Infantino. He had a vision of selling a stake in the World Cup to private investors.
Unfortunately, he faced massive backlash and was forced to scrap those plans. Despite this, there are calls for him to resign.
Gianni Infantino looked untouchable. Less than two weeks ago, the president of world’s football governing body FIFA was sitting alongside U.S.A. President, Donald Trump, at the World Cup final; the pair watching the culmination of the biggest tournament in football history.
There is no time to dance around the subject. Gianni Infantino must stand down as FIFA president or otherwise be legally removed. No fresh chances can be made available for an official who has demolished trust in football’s integrity and governance; trashing all remaining credibility of the body that oversees the world’s most-cherished sport.
Infantino was forced into a humiliating climbdown on Saturday morning when he accepted the failure of his plan to sell off portions of the World Cup to private investment. He resolved to resume dialogue about football’s growth "in the spirit of shared interest in our game."
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Such a naked attempt to save his own skin can't hold. Every day Infantino remains in power is a fresh stain on an institution whose reputation is on the floor.
The overreach involved in unilaterally launching the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme – with its vision to place huge influence on football’s future in the palms of venture capitalists – would be enough to bring down most leaders.
Infantino’s rap sheet goes far beyond that. He has routinely made a mockery of FIFA’s own statutes and governance regulations, so nobody should be surprised that patience has finally snapped in corridors of power globally. FIFA's "football unites the world" slogan has never looked more empty.
Article 10.3 of those regulations, which specifically pertains to the presidency, requires the incumbent to ensure "FIFA’s objectives, mission, strategic direction, policies and values are sustainably pursued, protected and implemented, and that a positive image of FIFA is fostered."
It stipulates "promoting friendly and peaceful relations within FIFA" which is a nonsense given the degree to which federations and senior personnel have distanced themselves from Infantino in recent days.
The rules give no green light to the pursuit of multiple private projects that, most recently in lockstep with the current US administration or its tributaries, have been tabled with scant appetite for oversight or explanation.
Where to begin? The Folarin Balogun saga tipped many leading figures in football, particularly in Europe, towards the edge. There had already been widespread bafflement and disgust at Infantino’s presentation of the new FIFA peace prize to Donald Trump in December, with little background given about the process and highly contestable information provided about the US president’s qualifying achievements.
Stakeholders were frustrated by a lack of consultation about the introduction of "hydration breaks," which fundamentally toyed with the fabric of matches at this summer’s World Cup.
The bizarre expedited bidding process for the 2034 tournament, which resulted in Saudi Arabia’s candidature being waved through in December 2024, also brought widespread criticism. This list only covers the past 20 months of controversies inflicted by Infantino, capped on Friday by revelations that plans for a 64-team World Cup are in full swing.
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When a scathing statement from UEFA on Saturday called for an end to "secret schemes on fast track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game," it was not only referring to the FFE project and its casual sidelining of other decision makers within FIFA.
A critical mass has been reached. UEFA took a decisive lead in following more than a year of harsh words with strong, united actin in pledging to boycott future FIFA tournaments if Infantino didn't withdraw his plan.
It undoubtedly influenced the outcome and the UEFA president, Aleksander Ceferin, secured an achievement that may define his own reign. It will mean nothing if Infantino, who is understood to have deployed a major consultancy to smooth relations with federations in recent days, is given the oxygen to dangle fresh promises and turn heads back towards the status quo.
There is an acknowledgment within UEFA and beyond that the pace must not let up. Senior figures are adamant Infantino must not survive the current scandal.
Some insiders feel a crucial next step will be for member associations, the overwhelming majority of whom had formally pledged their support for Infantino’s re-election next March, to recall those letters.
Doing so requires a request to FIFA but could, in sufficient numbers, be a de facto vote of no confidence in Infantino. FIFA had lobbied aggressively for those submissions but many FAs would now be red faced if their expression of fealty towards Infantino was more widely publicised.
Member associations have a duty not to shrink in staving off existential threats to their sport otherwise they, like Infantino, are doing it an egregious disservice. Backing away now would mean leaving the job half done at best.
UEFA have pledged to devise a new method for distributing FIFA’s wealth, delving into its multibillion cash reserves without "selling the family silver." Behind the scenes, it continues to work with other confederations in an effort to find credible candidates for Infantino’s replacement; with a view to running in the election should the Swiss hold on until then. The present crisis can be used to reshape football for the better but only if Infantino is not in situ to impose the final say.
The alternative is that FIFA and by extension the game, continue lurching from one disaster to the next. It is no laughing matter when the public conversation around football centres on one man, his ego and brazen ventures.
In December, Zvonimir Boban, a former sidekick to Infantino as FIFA's deputy secretary general,said that "the way is lost" after the peace prize award to Trump. Fifa will not find a route back until Infantino plays no further part in its operation.
Trump has often called Infantino the "King of Soccer"— and for one afternoon at MetLife Stadium outside New York, the description didn't seem far-fetched.
There were boos when the two men walked onto the pitch to present the trophy and medals to Spain and Argentina players. They were little more than a footnote to what had otherwise been a triumphant month for FIFA.
The expanded World Cup had delivered on the pitch and at the box office; generating record revenues and widespread praise from much of the football world.
With around 200 of FIFA’s 211 national member federations having pledged support for his re-election bid, Infantino appeared to be cruising towards another four-year term when delegates vote next March.
That sense of inevitability has since evaporated.
Instead of celebrating the tournament’s success, Infantino has spent the past week battling the biggest political crisis of his presidency — one that has exposed deep divisions within global football and, for the first time in years, cast doubt over his grip on power.
The catalyst was his proposal to invite private investors, led by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared, to buy a stake in the future profits of World Cups and other Fifa competitions.
The idea sparked an extraordinary backlash. Senior FIFA officials accused Infantino of misleading everyone over the project, while European nations threatened to boycott Fifa events if the plans went ahead.
By Saturday morning, the proposal was dead.
"Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place," Infantino said in a statement.
The decision marked a remarkable reversal for a president who, only days earlier, had appeared politically unassailable.
Whether abandoning the investment project is enough to restore confidence in Infantino is another question. He faces a level of scrutiny and opposition that seemed almost unimaginable as he handed over the World Cup trophy alongside Trump only 12 days ago.
Infantino’s proposal would have created a subsidiary — known as Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) — for the money-making parts of the not-for-profit football body’s work: running tournaments like the World Cup, selling broadcasting and sponsorship, tickets and hospitality.
Private equity and petrostate sovereign wealth money has been normalised in European club football, yet they seem unthinkable for many observers in the World Cup — football’s ultimate prize is about glory, not money and fans have long believed the World Cup belongs to them.
FIFA proposed raising $4.2 billion (R70 billion) from investors buying stakes amounting to about 20% in FFE; based on an equity valuation of $20 billion.
The "anchor investor" would have been Thrive Eternal, launched by Joshua Kushner.
FIFA’s 211 member federations, effective owners of the governing body as a non-profit association under Swiss law, were offered $20 million each. The deadline to accept was 19 September.
The members are due $10 million each from FIFA over the next four years, funded largely by its record $15 billion revenue over 2023-26 tied to the World Cup just finished.
FIFA says under FFE, that would have doubled to $20 million each, then rise to $22 million each through 2034 and $24 million to 2038. That’s a massive sum for tiny football federations in places like Andorra, Montserrat and Papua New Guinea.
Infantino was looking increasingly friendless on Friday. His senior adviser, former Goldman Sachs banker, Carlos Cordeiro, resigned and called it a bad deal.
FIFA Chief Operating Officer Kevin Lamour said its staff were deceived by their president’s World Cup sell-off plan and suggested on Friday the project must not go ahead.
A key move on Thursday was European football body Uefa vowing to boycott all FIFA competitions until Infantino dropped the plan. Europe’s teams routinely dominate and win FIFA trophies like the men’s World Cup and Club World Cup that are its biggest revenue earners.
They collectively feared that private investors would seek and demand value from more games and bigger competitions that threaten the balance of global football.
That could jeopardise attention and revenues for club football, including the Champions League. Fixture calendars are congested, elite players are at their limits, broadcast and sponsor money is not unlimited.
European football’s Uefa led the way, stating that it would boycott the World Cup and all Fifa competitions if the proposal was not taken back.
CONCACAF, the confederation of North American, Central American and Caribbean nations, also rejected the FIFA plan. The Asian Football Confederation also gave its support to Uefa and Concacaf.
"The AFC stands in solidarity with Uefa and Concacaf in expressng serious concerns over Fifa’s proposal to introduce private investment into [its] flagship competitions and the decision-making process around Fifa Forward Enterprise [FFE]," the AFC said in a statement.
All are angry that Infantino seems not to have consulted anyone while planning the project over the past year; when he was so focused on spending time in Trump’s orbit.
Even Trump said on Friday he had not spoken to the FIFA chief on his plan to sell stakes in the tournament.
Infantino’s traditional support base in Africa, which has 54 of the 211 voting members, had been neutral about the offers of game-changing money for many of them.
The 10-nation South American group CONMEBOL said on Friday it had received the proposal and would evaluate the issue "with the rigor it demands." CONMEBOL is led by FIFA vice-president, Alejandro Dominguez of Paraguay, who is relying on Infantino expanding the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams.
That would give more games to minority co-hosts Argentina, Paraguay and inaugural 1930 World Cup host, Uruguay, who are set to get just one game each of the 104.
The rest are in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
While football officials and fans across the world welcomed the shelving of the plans, the opposition to the World Cup sell-off once again highlighted tension surrounding Infantino’s modus operandi and reignited calls for greater transparency.
UEFA said in a statement that it had "lost confidence" in Infantino.
The European football body welcomed FIFA’s decision to withdraw the plan and thanked the "fans, leagues, clubs, players, individuals, associations and confederations that opposed the scheme" but demanded consequences for the FIFA’s leadership.
"We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game. We must identify those responsible and hold them to account."
"The current Fifa leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”
The AFC’s President, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa, also welcomed Fifa’s reversal.
Salman wrote that he expected "any initiative that has the potential to impact global football will be presented and discussed with the confederations, the Fifa Council, Member Associations and other stakeholders in a timely, transparent and meaningful manner."
"The future of global football must always be shaped through proper consultation, collective dialogue and respect for the established governance structures of our game."
18 November is the deadline for candidates to enter the next presidential contest, exactly four months before the vote in Rabat, Morocco, where Fifa has its African headquarters.
Infantino was re-elected unopposed in 2019 in Paris, France, and 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda. FIFA statutes allow him one more four-year term in office after his first was a partial term.
The FFE spin-off seemed a way to create a commissioner-like role for Infantino beyond 2031; probably paying much more than his annual salary and bonus deal of more than $6 million.
It would take 106 votes to ensure a majority in a contested election. Continents surely don't vote uniformly en bloc but most of Europe’s 55, plus CONCACAF’s 35 and Asia’s 46 would be a solid base.
Speculation on a possible direct challenger typically lands on Paris Saint-Germain’s Qatari president Nasser al-Khelaïfi and the Canadian FIFA vice-president, Victor Montagliani.
Such talk seemed fanciful until this week, despite long-term unease with Infantino’s style and previous attempts to force through unpopular projects.
The talk has never seemed more likely to become action.
Infantino should be removed. It's quite clear that he was just thinking about himself and his future with this failed venture. Despite his denial, I'm under the belief that Trump was behind this.
The two besties won't be able to collaborate further in official matters after 2028. None of them showed any remorse. It's rather disturbing that two leaders lack any sympathy. Lacking a conscience is just plain psychopathic.