UEFA, the governing body of European football, says it has lost confidence in Gianni Infantino’s leadership of FIFA, in an unusually ferocious rebuke issued after the world body abandoned a controversial plan to sell stakes in its competitions to private investors.
On Saturday, Infantino said FIFA would no longer proceed with the proposal to sell stakes in the governing body’s competitions, a plan that had triggered a global backlash since it was first reported in the media on Tuesday. UEFA, which had earlier voted to boycott World Cups if the plans went ahead, welcomed the decision, describing it as “a victory for the whole game”.
But in a lengthy statement released several hours after FIFA’s announcement, UEFA accused Infantino of failing to deliver on promises, quoting a speech he gave when campaigning to become FIFA president in 2016. “The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family,” the statement read.
“When Gianni Infantino asked for the trust and the votes of FIFA’s member associations to elect him as their president in 2016, he said: ‘Of course we have to be transparent.’ He told the assembled stakeholders: ‘The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA president.’ On both these promises, he has failed to deliver. The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through were anything but transparent,” UEFA said.
UEFA said it “cannot keep going on” with “secret schemes of fast-track timescales cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game”, and pledged to devise a plan with its associations and other confederations to ensure such a situation “cannot occur again”. It added: “This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in FIFA has only just begun.”
The Football Association of England said it supports UEFA’s position, adding: “It is time for a full and robust review of FIFA’s leadership and governance to ensure that the global game is run transparently.” Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian Football Federation, said it was “reassuring to be part of a strong and united UEFA throughout this process”, and warned that the entire framework of international football cooperation had been “unnecessarily put at risk in pursuit of individual interests rather than the best interests of the game”.
The Asian Football Confederation also voiced strong criticism of Infantino, according to the BBC. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who was the first leader of a major country to call on Infantino to resign, said FIFA made “the right decision” to back down.
The fallout leaves Infantino under intense pressure as he seeks re-election for a fourth term as president at the FIFA Congress in March. The proposal to sell stakes in competitions such as the World Cup had been seen as a bid to raise billions of dollars from private investors, but drew opposition from confederations and governments alike over concerns about governance, transparency and the integrity of the sport.
Sources: BBC Sport, Sky News, Politico
Author: Europe Desk
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