GENEVA (AP) — Successfully stopping Gianni Infantino’s FIFA plan to sell World Cup profits to private investors was the first half of a high-stakes game in global soccer politics.The second half kicked off Saturday with what seemed a clear aim of ending Infantino’s decade-long presidency.“No option should be off the table,” said European soccer body UEFA, whose president Aleksander Čeferin has led the fight against Infantino in a seismic week for FIFA.
“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”Infantino had proposed creating a $20 billion company to run the World Cup with private investors but drew backlash that grew every day since Tuesday’s announcement.Infantino was forced to scrap the plan early Saturday after his senior adviser who sat on a White House panel resigned and Asia’s soccer body joined Europe and North America in opposing it.UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, issued its blistering statement hours after FIFA announced it was withdrawing its private equity plan.“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,” UEFA said. “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.”Infantino’s audacious bid fell apart after UEFA’s 55-member nations agreed Thursday to boycott the World Cup and all other FIFA competitions. North America’s CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation also said they opposed the plan.WHITE HOUSE FIFA ADVISER RESIGNS OVER GIANNI INFANTINO PROPOSAL TO SELL STAKES TO PRIVATE INVESTORSThere was also an internal revolt.Infantino’s senior adviser, Carlos Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs banker who represented the soccer body on the White House Task Force for the World Cup, resigned on Friday and urged other senior FIFA staff to speak out.Hours later, FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour issued a statement to The Associated Press, saying FIFA staff were deceived by Infantino’s lack of openness in planning the sale over recent months and that the project must not continue.“It is the project of one person,” wrote Lamour, a longtime colleague of Infantino at both FIFA and UEFA. “Not only must this project not go ahead … but the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions.”Infantino had proposed spinning off FIFA’s commercial businesses — including World Cups and Club World Cups for men and women — into a $20 billion subsidiary with 20% owned by private investors.The “anchor investor,” described by FIFA, is a New York-based investment firm launched by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.This is not Infantino’s first big plan to flop
