Gianni Infantino replacement named as UEFA make special request to FA | Football | Sport
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is under serious pressure. (Image: Getty Images)
UEFA are reportedly accelerating their attempts to oust Gianni Infantino as president of FIFA, contacting the English FA among others and putting forward a contender to replace Infantino. The current chief has seen re-election support collapse after his failed attempts to sell a stake in the World Cup to private investors.
European football’s governing body, alongside CONCACAF and AFC, opposed the plans and effectively killed off the proposal. Now, UEFA are working to remove Infantino from a position of power. Originally devised as a method of strengthening his backing ahead of seeking re-election for a fourth term as FIFA president, the strategy could now lead to his downfall.
UEFA have spearheaded the revolt against Infantino and are now examining the most effective means of deposing him as FIFA president. Sky News reports that manoeuvres are ‘accelerating’ and there exists ‘a determined effort’ to remove him.
The report suggests it is now not a matter of if, but when, Infantino will be ousted.
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The simplest solution would be to force Infantino to step down from a role he’s occupied for 10 years. Failing that, they would require 43 of FIFA’s 211 associations to request an emergency congress to conduct a vote of no confidence in Infantino’s leadership.
Another possibility would be to mobilise backing behind a challenger in the forthcoming election. TalkSPORT claim that UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has made a special request to federations that had previously supported Infantino for a fourth term, including the English FA, to withdraw their endorsements.
CONCACAF chief Victor Montagliani or Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi could be proposed to run against Infantino.
Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, and Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA President (Image: Getty Images)
Whichever route they choose, it is evident that UEFA is resolved to harness the current impetus to drive enduring reform at FIFA.
UEFA declared in a statement on Saturday: “We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game. We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.
“It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again.
“That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table. The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.
“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. I have been this in the last 15 years of my life in UEFA. You will have to play a part every day in the life of FIFA,’ before telling the assembled stakeholders, ‘The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA President. It’s your money. You are the national associations and the money of FIFA has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.’
“On both these promises, he has failed to deliver. The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through was anything but transparent. And with reserves standing at over $5bn, he has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.
“UEFA will begin work immediately with partners and stakeholders all over the world and right across the game to propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward programme.
“We must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in FIFA’s bank account to deliver the kick start that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of FIFA. But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.
“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.”
