Gianni Infantino is a ‘useless duck’ as his ‘reckless greed’ has seen him ‘lose all of it’
FIFA’s council is trying to force an extraordinary general meeting that could trigger a leadership challenge to oust the underfire president over his botched World Cup sale plan
Gianni Infantino has been told to leave his post(Image: Getty Images)
Gianni Infantino is a ‘dead duck’ whose ‘reckless greed’ in trying to flog off the World Cup has left him facing the red card, a senior football source said.
Members of FIFA’s council are trying to force an extraordinary general meeting that could trigger a leadership challenge to elbow the underfire president. They are livid they were kept in the dark about his plan to set up a FIFA sister company to run major tournaments – and sell part of it off to one of US President Donald Trump ’s in-laws for £3.1bn.
Infantino planned to run the spin-off himself – for a reported £22m salary. He kicked the plan into touch at the weekend after UEFA and Concacaf vowed to boycott the World Cup if it went ahead.
Gianni Infantino (left) and Donald Trump(Image: Getty Images)
His senior adviser quit in protest and FIFA’s chief operating officer accused Infantino 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 believed Infantino had lost the trust of the football world in 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 as FIFA president looked untenable. He said there could be ‘only one consequence’ for the Swiss lawyer after his botched plan united football in outrage.
This could be the last World Cup under Infantino(Image: Rob Newell/Getty Images)
“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,” Schafer told Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung.
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.”
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 in future. “It’s solely about the financial advantages – everything else is completely ignored,” he said.
Andy Burnham says Infantino should step down(Image: Jack Taylor/PA Wire)
European Leagues opposed the plan because it would add more matches to an already packed international calendar to the detriment of national championships, Schafer said. “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,” he added.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has called for Infantino to go. Asked if the FIFA president should be replaced the PM 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.”
UEFA could bring down Infantino using his own plan. When he was head of UEFA he secretly drafted a plot for the European association to split from FIFA and form a rival world football body. He penned it during the last major crisis in football politics a decade ago when Sepp Blatter, Infantino’s predecessor at FIFA, was brought down by a corruption scandal. As it intensified Infantino described how UEFA could create a rival splinter world football organisation.
The plan was never put forward, Blatter stepped down and Infantino got his job. But the blueprint to exit FIFA permanently and create a splinter world football body 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 talks. They added: “UEFA is considering enacting these against him.”
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 marks a rapid fall from grace for Infantino who seemed untouchable during the World Cup. He was set to be re-elected FIFA president unopposed despite a host of controversies during the tournament. FIFA was criticised over ticket prices, US visa bans on players, referees, and team officials, the quality of refereeing and the suspending of US star Folarin Balogun’s red card ban after interference from American president Donald Trump.
But Infantino, 56, who has held the post since 2016, still had the formal endorsement of more than 200 countries for re-election. Only a handful of FIFA’s 211 member associations were yet to send in letters of support for him – meaning he was on course to be voted into a fourth term by a landslide at the association’s congress in March.
Germany was the highest-profile FA yet to offer its backing. Candidates must be put forward by November 18. Infantino was the only runner. He announced on Saturday the sell-off proposal ‘will not proceed’ after it became clear the project had ‘created divisions’.
In a statement he 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.”
