Uefa says it has lost confidence in Gianni Infantino’s leadership of Fifa after the governing body abandoned a controversial plan to sell stakes in its competitions to private investors.
Fifa president Infantino announced on Saturday that the proposal would not go ahead, following mounting opposition from football authorities across the world.
Uefa, European football’s governing body, had warned that it would boycott World Cups if the plan was approved. Other confederations also criticised the proposal, which was first reported in the media on Tuesday.
In a lengthy statement, Uefa welcomed Fifa’s decision to withdraw the plan and described it as “a victory for the whole game”. However, it said the move was only the beginning of a much larger effort to restore confidence in world football’s governing body.
“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.
Uefa also accused Infantino of failing to honour commitments he made while campaigning for the Fifa presidency in 2016. It referred to a speech in which he promised greater transparency and said Fifa’s funds should be used to develop football.
“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. 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 were anything but transparent.”
Uefa said the withdrawal of the proposal should not end scrutiny of Fifa’s leadership.
“This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story,” its statement continued.
“The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in Fifa has only just begun.”
How opposition brought the plan to an end
The proposed investment deal triggered widespread criticism after details emerged earlier in the week. On Thursday, Uefa voted to boycott World Cups if the plans went ahead, arguing that the tournament “cannot be treated as an investment product”.
Concacaf, which is responsible for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean and hosted this summer’s World Cup, said its members “rejected” the proposal. Sources said the vast majority of associations in the region were losing, or had already lost, faith in Infantino.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) then said it stood in “solidarity” with Uefa and Concacaf.
The opposition was not limited to football’s governing bodies. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Infantino was “the wrong man” to lead Fifa.
The pressure increased on Friday when Fifa chief operating officer Kevin Lamour said the organisation’s own administration had been “deceived” about the project.
Carlos Cordeiro, Infantino’s senior adviser on global strategy and governance, resigned over the proposal. He described it as “a bad deal for football” and warned that it would “mortgage football’s future”.
The decision to abandon the plan removes the immediate threat of a boycott by Uefa and opposition from other confederations. But Uefa’s statement made clear that the dispute has left a wider crisis of trust between Fifa’s leadership and parts of the international football community.
