Gianni Infantino has been branded a “dead duck” by a senior football source as FIFA’s council moves to force an extraordinary general meeting that could trigger a leadership challenge against the FIFA president.
The move follows Infantino’s abandonment of a plan to set up a FIFA sister company to run major tournaments and sell a stake to one of US President Donald Trump’s in-laws for £3.1bn. He had reportedly planned to run the spin-off himself on a £22m salary, but dropped the proposal at the weekend after UEFA and Concacaf threatened to boycott the World Cup.
Fallout from the shelved deal
FIFA council members were livid at being kept in the dark over the proposal. Infantino’s senior adviser resigned in protest, while FIFA’s chief operating officer accused him of a “unilateral exercise of power” that displayed a lack of “trust”, “transparency”, “discernment”, “good governance” and “respect”.
UEFA said it welcomed the axing of the plan but argued Infantino had lost the trust of the football world by trying to push through a “shabby, back room, opaque deal”.
Claudius Schafer, the head of Europe’s 53 professional football leagues, said Infantino’s position looked untenable. He told Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung: “When I saw how this whole thing unfolded and that FIFA’s key bodies weren’t involved, then there’s essentially only one consequence in any company or association.” Asked if that meant Infantino should not remain as FIFA president, Schafer said: “This is usually the consequence when someone in a company pushes such a business deal forward without anyone knowing about it.”
European leagues and PM join criticism
Schafer, also chief executive of the Swiss Football League, said the proposal suggested FIFA’s main goal was to maximise profits for third parties by having more and bigger competitions. “It’s solely about the financial advantages - everything else is completely ignored,” he said. He said European Leagues opposed the plan because it would add more matches to an already packed international calendar to the detriment of national championships.
He added: “Nobody knew about the plans, not even the FIFA Council, the governing body of FIFA. I was very surprised that the president was acting completely alone in this matter.”
Prime Minister Andy Burnham also called for Infantino to go. Asked whether the FIFA president should be replaced, Burnham said: “I do not believe that he is the right man to lead football forward on the world stage. The plan that was put forward was offensive to many people, football people, around the world, and it can’t be the case that we just move on and forget that. It wasn’t acceptable. I don’t believe he’s the right man to lead FIFA forward.”
Threat of a rival world body
UEFA could use Infantino’s own abandoned blueprint in the fight against him. A decade ago, as head of UEFA during the corruption scandal that brought down FIFA president Sepp Blatter, Infantino secretly drafted a plan for UEFA to break away from FIFA and form a rival world football body. Blatter stepped down and Infantino later took the FIFA job, so the plan was never put forward.
But the blueprint has not been forgotten. “He thought no-one kept them because all that team had left, but not everyone disposed of these plans,” said one source aware of the talks. They added: “UEFA is considering enacting these against him.”
From untouchable to dead duck
A senior football source said: “Infantino had it all, and his reckless greed means he has now lost it. He’s an embarrassment and he’s not a lame duck but a dead duck.”
It is a rapid fall for Infantino, who seemed untouchable during the World Cup. He had been set to be re-elected unopposed despite criticism of ticket prices, US visa bans on players, referees and team officials, the standard of refereeing and the lifting of a red-card ban for US star Folarin Balogun after interference from Trump.
Infantino, 56, has held the post since 2016 and still had the formal endorsement of more than 200 countries. Only a handful of FIFA’s 211 member associations had yet to send letters of support, putting him on course for a landslide fourth term at the March congress. Germany was the highest-profile association yet to offer its backing, and candidates must be put forward by November 18. Infantino was the only runner.
He announced on Saturday that the sell-off proposal “will not proceed” after it became clear the project had “created divisions”. In a statement, Infantino said: “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. Our purpose has always been - and will always be - to unite and improve. As a result, this proposal will not proceed. Moving forward, my intent is to bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks in the spirit of shared interest in our game, and with the objective to continue growing football everywhere, particularly in those countries that mostly need our support.”
