Pressure builds on Gianni Infantino as PM brands him ‘wrong man’ to lead FIFA

FIFA’s plans to sell stakes in a company which would run the commercial and operational aspects of its competitions, including the men’s and women’s World Cups, has been rejected by three continental confederations and led to the resignation of his senior adviser, Carlos Cordeiro.

European football’s governing body UEFA has gone a step further and insisted its nations will boycott FIFA events until the project is scrapped. Another senior FIFA official, chief operating officer Kevin Lamour, released a strong statement to the Associated Press on Friday afternoon describing it as “a project of one person”.

Burnham added his voice to the debate on Friday when he said: “This was an outrageous suggestion.

“The idea that it could even be brought forward shows that, in my view, (Infantino) is the wrong man to lead the organisation.”

FIFA is proposing to create FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to manage its competitions, with the most controversial aspect of the plan being the intention to sell a 20 per cent stake to private investors.

Thrive Eternal, a company founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of United States President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been earmarked as the lead investor. It has so far declined to comment on the matter.

FIFA has so far not offered any further update on its plans beyond a release published in the early hours of Friday saying it intended to continue the consultation process on FFE.

That came after UEFA’s rejection and boycott, and the rejection from CONCACAF, which represents countries from North America, Central America and the Caribbean. The Press Association understands its members are losing – or have lost – confidence in Infantino.

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However, it came before a damning statement from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), which said it stood in solidarity with UEFA and CONCACAF in rejecting the plans but also went further, calling for an “urgent review” of FIFA’s governance and decision-making framework.

“This is not the first occasion where major stakeholders have been confronted with significant initiatives after the direction of travel appears to have already been determined,” the AFC said.

Shortly after the AFC release, Cordeiro confirmed his decision to resign as Infantino’s senior advisor, calling FFE “a bad deal for football”.

He also questioned the need for FIFA to resort to seeking private investment, saying to do so would be “mortgaging football’s future without any compelling justification”.

FIFA’s chief operating officer Lamour issued a statement to AP on Friday attacking the plan.

“The project that has sparked so much controversy and debate is not a FIFA project. It is even less a project of FIFA’s administration. It is the project of one person,” Lamour said.

“The FIFA vice-presidents, the members of the FIFA Council, the confederations, the federations, the players, the leagues, the clubs, and the fans were not the only ones who were ignored.

“FIFA’s own administration was also deceived. This lie by omission over many months and this unilateral exercise of power are not trivial. They are indicative of a lack of trust, a lack of transparency, a lack of discernment, a lack of good governance. And a serious lack of respect.

“Not only must this project not go ahead – for obvious reasons that need not even be listed here – but the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions.

“Regarding this project and what comes next. Everyone must take responsibility. Because it is becoming increasingly difficult for FIFA’s administration to work under these conditions and fulfill its mission.

“Our mission – the mission of the hundreds of passionate, dedicated, and exemplary FIFA employees – is to serve football. Not to serve the personal interests of a person who, unfortunately, believes he embodies FIFA when he is supposed to be at its service.

“A president must bring people together, unite them, and inspire them. Today, we are experiencing the opposite.”

UEFA “unanimously and unequivocally” rejected the FFE proposal on Thursday and said its teams will not play in FIFA competitions “while it remains alive”.

One of its chief concerns was the potential for private investment to pile pressure on for ever bigger, ever more frequent tournaments.

It then emerged that on Thursday FIFA had sent out a research brief, seen by PA, for agencies to assess the impact of expanding the World Cup from 48 to 64 teams. The timescales involved are extremely short, with the successful agency asked to deliver its analysis by September 11.

FIFA has been contacted to ascertain whether confederations were made aware of this brief being sent out, or its content.

FIFA has consistently said that FFE would require a majority of associations to approve it. If all the associations within UEFA, AFC and CONCACAF stand by their confederations’ statements, then Infantino simply does not have the numbers.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) and the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) have both said they will examine the proposal, while South American confederation CONMEBOL said it had “requested additional information and clarification from FIFA on various aspects relating to the scope, structure, governance and potential effects of the FFE project”.