Former Barcelona and Inter Milan striker Samuel Eto’o, now the president of the Cameroonian Football Federation, has defended Gianni Infantino’s plot to sell stakes in FIFA’s events and commercial operations.In an interview with CNN, Eto’o said he hopes the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal would be put back on the table in the event Infantino secures re-election for a fourth term in FIFA’s presidential ballot early next year.Also on Monday, several current and former international footballers released or promoted statements which said “change is necessary” and the sport has “drifted away from its core values under FIFA’s current leadership.” Those to share the post include French World Cup winner Emmanuel Petit, former France and Manchester United defender Mikael Silvestre and Chelsea defender and England international Lucy Bronze.For now, Infantino is the only confirmed candidate and his re-election appeared certain before his plan to sell 21 per cent of a proposed spin-off commercial arm to investors including Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Eternal provoked a mighty global backlash. This followed a considerable response to FIFA’s decision to suspend a one-game ban for U.S forward Folarin Balogun during the World Cup, after U.S. president Donald Trump had called Infantino to request a review of the decision, which Infantino claims was made independently. The leadership of UEFA, Concacaf and the Asian football confederation have all admonished Infantino publicly, with several countries withdrawing support for his candidature, while current Concacaf president Victor Montagliani is considering challenging for Infantino’s job.However, the African and South American confederations, as well as Oceania, have been much more forgiving of Infantino, while there appears to be little uniform even between federations of the same confederation, with Mexico, for example, currently still aligned with Infantino, while several Asian countries have released statements defending the FIFA president. At the same time, New Zealand has withdrawn support for Infantino, despite its confederation of Oceania so far appearing to stand by him.Eto’o told CNN Sports: “I don’t think that President Gianni Infantino has done anything wrong. I think the timing of all of that is because there’s an election coming out, when Gianni Infantino is standing. That’s all there is.”