Gianni Infantino ‘has lost Uefa’s confidence’ after Fifa chief scraps World Cup sell-off plan
- +Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football
Uefa has warned Gianni Infantino that his style of leadership cannot continue in demanding a thorough and fundamental review of Fifa’s governance.
Uefa has warned Gianni Infantino that his style of leadership cannot continue in demanding a thorough and fundamental review of Fifa’s governance.
In a strongly worded statement that referred to “secret schemes”, “shabby backroom deals” and “faceless individuals”, the Uefa leadership made clear it wants change at the top of Fifa, despite the world governing body’s overnight U-turn in abandoning Infantino’s plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup and other competitions.
While stopping short of calling for Infantino to resign, Uefa’s leadership is understood to be determined that he should not be permitted to survive a crisis of his own making, a view that is shared by many of the biggest football governing bodies across the world. Leading European officials are already understood to have begun the process of identifying a candidate to stand against Infantino in next year’s Fifa presidential election, which will continue over the next few days.
Uefa’s statement made clear that under the leadership of president Aleksander Ceferin, who succeeded in getting all 55 member associations to support a World Cup boycott last Thursday, it will continue to push for change.
“It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, Uefa will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again. That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table. The current Fifa leadership has not only lost Uefa’s confidence, but also that of many other members of the football family.”
Uefa went on to criticise Infantino directly, saying he has failed to deliver on pledges he made to be transparent and accountable before he was first elected president in 2016.
Infantino had been expected to be re-elected unopposed for a third full term at next March’s Fifa Congress in Rabat, but while he is determined to stay on the 56-year-old could now face a challenger. While he has already secured more than 200 letters of support from member associations endorsing his re-election campaign they can be withdrawn, and the deadline for other candidates to announce an intention to stand is not until 18 November.
The Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi is favoured by many in Europe, but appears reluctant to stand and is also chairman of powerful lobby group, European Football Clubs. Other potential candidates include Victor Montagliani, the Canadian who is the president of North American confederation Concacaf, and the Asian Football Confederation president Salman al-Khalifa, who lost narrowly to Infantino in the 2016 Fifa election.
Uefa’s statement used Infantino’s own words from his initial election campaign 10 years ago against him. “When Gianni Infantino asked for the trust and the votes of Fifa’s Member Associations to elect him as their president in 2016, he said, ‘Of course we have to be transparent. I have been this in the last 15 years of my life in Uefa. You will have to play a part every day in the life of Fifa,’ before telling the assembled stakeholders, ‘The money of Fifa is your money. It’s not the money of the Fifa president. It’s your money. You are the national associations, and the money of Fifa has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.’
“On both these promises, he has failed to deliver. The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through were anything but transparent. And with reserves standing at over $5bn, he has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.”
Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football
Uefa also called for an immediate overhaul of Fifa’s system of financial distribution, the Fifa Forward programme in which all 211 member associations receive the same central payment from Fifa over each four-year cycle. Infantino had claimed that selling 20% of a new commercial company – Fifa Forward Enterprise – to private investors would enable them to increase the Fifa Forward payments from $8m over the next four-year cycle to $20m, as well as a one-off $20m bonus for signing up to the scheme.
Handing out millions of dollars to tiny nations has been widely criticised as a system of patronage designed to keep Infantino in office, while the $20m bonus on offer for associations who signed up by a deadline of 19 September was condemned.
“Uefa will begin work immediately with partners and stakeholders all over the world and right across the game to propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing Fifa Forward programme,” its statement continued. “We must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in Fifa’s bank account to deliver the kick start that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of Fifa. But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.
“This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in Fifa has only just begun.”
