France has become the latest country to withdraw support for FIFA president Gianni Infantino.The French Football Federation released a statement on Thursday confirming its decision, citing “a series of events directly involving FIFA’s governance and its president, and in direct conflict with the fundamental principles of good governance and the values of football”.Infantino is up for re-election in March 2027, and is currently due to run unopposed.However, following the failed attempt by FIFA to sell off a minority stake in its commercial and event operations, including the men’s and women’s World Cups, to private investors, support for Infantino has rapidly dwindled around the world.The Swiss-Italian former businessman spearheaded the ‘FIFA Forward Enterprise’ plan, which was first revealed in the media in the week following the men’s World Cup final in July, before backtracking only a few days later, saying that “it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place”.
The FFF said that Infantino’s initiative had “seriously damaged the image and unity of football” and that it wants “a far-reaching reform of FIFA’s governance”.How a secret plot and political naïveté may spell the end of FIFA's leaderBefore FIFA and Infantino abandoned the private investment plan, UEFA — European football’s governing body, to which the FFF is a member — threatened to boycott any FIFA-run competitions unless the scheme was scrapped. The boycott has been shelved but UEFA and several of its member nations have come out against Infantino since.Earlier this week, the Royal Belgian Football Association cited the Folarin Balogun case — where FIFA made the unprecedented move of suspending an automatic one-game ban, which he would have served against Belgium, the United States striker had incurred for a red card — as well as the failed FFE plan as reasons for withdrawing support for Infantino. On Sunday, FIFA reiterated that Infantino will stand in the March election.Meanwhile, Concacaf, the confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean, and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have joined UEFA in calling for Infantino’s resignation, but respective member nations including Mexico and Qatar have come out for the 56-year-old.Infantino has been FIFA president since replacing Sepp Blatter in 2016. He was re-elected after standing unopposed in 2019 and 2023, and would serve another four-year term if successfully re-elected next year.
