European football leaders are increasingly confident they will find a candidate to stand against Gianni Infantino in next year’s Fifa presidential election, with the heads of the English and German Football Associations questioning his fitness to govern after a three-and-a-half-hour council meeting. Infantino began the long-awaited gathering of Fifa’s 37-strong executive board by apologising for failing to consult them over his abandoned World Cup sell-off plan (FFE) but failed to provide answers to dozens of questions posed by the European FAs on a range of subjects including the Fifa Forward Enterprise proposal, Donald Trump’s Fifa peace prize and the Folarin Balogun affair, when the USA striker’s World Cup suspension was overturned after lobbying from the US president. Infantino’s apology was followed by a 30-minute presentation on FFE from two American lawyers, who described the $20bn (£15.1bn) valuation and proposed sale of a 20% stake to Thrive Capital as a good deal for Fifa.
At the insistence of some attenders, the lawyers were asked to leave the meeting after they had presented. When questioned, one of them confirmed he had been commissioned and paid by Fifa to produce a review of FFE. Council members succeeded in deferring, until they receive more information on Balogun, a Fifa proposal to amend its disciplinary regulations by removing the scope for players shown a straight red card to have it rescinded.
Infantino pledged to provide that information by their next meeting in Doha on 16 December, after nominations close on 18 November for March’s presidential election. The issue of whether the Fifa peace prize will be revived this year or Trump left as a standalone winner has been contracted out to Fifa’s social responsibility committee, and the Asian Football Confederation president, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, has been appointed to chair a new committee examining governance reform, but otherwise the meeting broke up without tangible answers, to the frustration of the English FA’s chair, Debbie Hewitt. That was what was shared in the meeting.” The German FA’s president, Bernd Neuendorf, went further by calling for wholesale reforms of Fifa’s administration, which he hopes will fall within the purview of Sheikh Salman’s governance committee.
So we need a complete restart, I think, a political restart of persons who represent Fifa. My impression was it was just because it wasn’t brought forward to the council and no one was involved.” Neuendorf also said he was “very confident” that an alternative candidate would be found to stand against Infantino, a view shared by senior figures at Uefa, who expect a late declaration to limit the amount of time for Fifa to scupper the nomination. The respective presidents of the three continental confederations who have called for Infantino to go, Aleksander Ceferin of Uefa, Victor Montagliani of Concacaf and Sheikh Salman, have ruled themselves out and suggestions that high-profile figures such as Arsène Wenger or Michele Kang could put themselves forward have been dismissed.
A proposal to distribute $3.5bn (£2.6bn) from Fifa’s financial reserves, which would involve each national association receiving £25m over the next four-year cycle, was approved by council. Montagliani is also understood to have been critical of Infantino, but Fifa’s president received strong support from council members from Asia and Africa. After finally withdrawing this proposal, president Gianni Infantino apologised to the members of the executive committee.
This was followed by a responsible debate, during which this issue was more or less shelved.
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