Victor Montagliani has told Concacaf staff he intends to stand for re-election as the confederation’s president next year, which will rule him out of going up against Gianni Infantino for the top job at Fifa.
The Canadian businessman is understood to have relayed the message to most of the 41 members of Concacaf, the North and Central American and Caribbean confederation.
Montagliani’s decision ends speculation
Montagliani has been widely touted as a potential candidate to take on Infantino for the Fifa presidency, particularly among Uefa member associations, who are conscious a European candidate would have no chance of beating Infantino in a ballot of Fifa’s 211 members.
At a town hall meeting of Concacaf staff late last month, however, Montagliani is understood to have said that despite the Fifa governance crisis and calls for him to stand, he wants to continue serving members in the region.
Timelines and background
Concacaf’s presidential election will take place in the first quarter of next year before the Fifa vote on 18 March in Rabat, with the similar timelines leading Montagliani to clarify his intentions to staff.
The 61-year-old was elected president on a reforming mandate 10 years ago after the corruption scandal that culminated in the arrest of then Concacaf president, Jeffrey Webb, after an FBI investigation. Webb admitted he had taken “bribes and kickbacks”.
Reform efforts continue
Uefa will also hold presidential elections next year, with Aleksander Ceferin, the incumbent, confirming his intention to stand at a meeting of Uefa’s 55 member associations in Berlin on Thursday.
Montagliani and Ceferin are expected to continue working together to bring about governance reform at Fifa after the World Cup sell-off scandal, which will be on the agenda at next Thursday’s Fifa council meeting in Zurich.
Fifa’s council has not met since Infantino’s Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan was exposed in July despite repeated calls from members for an extraordinary general meeting, with the summit their first meeting since Fifa congress in Vancouver last March.
Montagliani, Ceferin and the Asian Football Confederation president, Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, are expected to use the council meeting to demand an independent review of FFE and call for broader governance reforms of Fifa, which would give a greater voice to stakeholders and formalise the council’s role in decision-making.
Previous calls from the trio, expressed in letters sent to Infantino last month, for Fifa to allocate a portion of its $6bn (£4.5bn) cash reserves to members will also be discussed.
