UEFA has lifted its immediate threat to boycott FIFA competitions after receiving assurances that Gianni Infantino's scheme to sell off World Cup rights to private investors will not be repeated. The European governing body is expected to discuss its next course of action at its meeting in Monaco.
UEFA's moral stance questioned
At the height of the World Cup sell-off scandal, UEFA manoeuvred itself onto the high moral ground. Aleksander Ceferin's scriptwriters were in sensational form, with one opening gambit that 'the soul and governance of football are not assets to trade'.
Critics note that UEFA has turned the European Cup into a bloated, corporate mess with its own phoney anthem, a once-great competition beholden to sponsors such as Gazprom. UEFA was not so moralistic then.
As one of their later statements on FIFA and Infantino said, UEFA now cherishes the principle of football belonging to the fans. That principle might get an outing when Ceferin and UEFA's great and good convene in Monaco, where they may produce more flowery indignation about FIFA and Infantino after congratulating themselves on the perceived success of the newish Champions League format.
Backdown a cop-out?
For now, UEFA has backed out of a boycott of FIFA competitions. This means the under-20 women's World Cup can go ahead in a week's time in Poland, allowing young players who had nothing to do with Infantino's plot to perform on a big stage.
But if the lifting of the threat becomes a set-in-stone policy decision over dinners in Monte Carlo, it will be a cop-out. It is almost a month since the news of Infantino's Fifa Forward Enterprise proposal broke to widespread outrage.
UEFA, the Football Association, various football federations, and political leaders have expressed distaste for Infantino's money-making scheme and have all but told him to resign. But Infantino is proving to be even more thick-skinned than most people thought.
Infantino's resistance
An open letter calling for Infantino to leave his post, signed by French World Cup winners Emmanuel Petit, Bixente Lizarazu and Robert Pires, has had no effect. Brazilian legends Cafu and Roberto Carlos have issued statements giving their full support to Infantino, as did Cameroon great Samuel Eto'o.
Infantino is going to try and brazen this one out, or tough it out. He is not going to be forced out of office by grand, highfalutin words from UEFA, an organisation many at FIFA consider to be full of its own importance.
Action, not words, will force Infantino out, which is why he will probably see UEFA's lifting of the threat of an immediate boycott as some sort of minor triumph. This is why UEFA needs to have its ace card ready to use sooner rather than later.
If Infantino plans to preside over the next World Cup, UEFA will not sanction the participation of its 55 members. UEFA needs to make that abundantly clear over the next few days.
