Uefa Challenges Infantino's Leadership: Calls for Fifa Overhaul
Uefa has delivered its most ferocious challenge yet to Gianni Infantino’s authority, warning that his leadership style is no longer acceptable and demanding a “thorough and fundamental” overhaul of Fifa’s governance.
In a blistering statement that railed against “secret schemes”, “shabby backroom deals” and “faceless individuals”, European football’s governing body made clear it wants change at the top of the world game – even after Fifa abruptly abandoned Infantino’s controversial plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup and other competitions.
Uefa stopped short of openly calling for Infantino’s resignation. The message was still unmistakable: many of Europe’s most powerful figures do not believe he should survive what they see as a crisis of his own making. Senior officials across the continent, and beyond, are already understood to be sounding out a rival candidate to stand against the Fifa president at next year’s election, with that process now accelerating.
Uefa turns up the heat
Under Aleksander Ceferin, who last week secured unanimous backing from all 55 Uefa member associations for a World Cup boycott over the proposals, Europe has moved from private frustration to open confrontation.
“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’s statement read. “We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.”
Uefa said it would now work with its own associations and other confederations “in the coming days and weeks” to examine how the situation arose and to “devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again”, insisting that “no option should be off the table”.
The conclusion was stark: “The current Fifa leadership has not only lost Uefa’s confidence, but also that of many other members of the football family.”
Infantino, elected in 2016 on a platform of transparency and reform, now finds his own words being used against him. Uefa quoted his original campaign pledges back at him, recalling how he told member associations: “Of course we have to be transparent. I have been this in the last 15 years of my life in Uefa. You will have to play a part every day in the life of Fifa,” and, “The money of Fifa is your money. It’s not the money of the Fifa president. It’s your money. You are the national associations, and the money of Fifa has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.”
Uefa’s verdict was brutal: “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. And with reserves standing at over $5bn, he has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.”
Election no longer a formality
Until this week, Infantino’s re-election at the Fifa Congress in Rabat next March looked like a formality. He was expected to run unopposed for a third full term and has already secured more than 200 letters of support from member associations endorsing his campaign.
Those endorsements can be withdrawn. And the deadline for rival candidates to declare is 18 November.
Suddenly, the landscape has shifted. Infantino remains determined to stay on, but Uefa and several other major governing bodies are no longer prepared to quietly accept his dominance.
Names are already circulating. Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al‑Khelaifi is favoured by many in Europe, though he is thought to be reluctant to stand and currently chairs the powerful European Football Clubs lobby group. Victor Montagliani, the Canadian president of Concacaf, is another possibility, as is Asian Football Confederation chief Salman al‑Khalifa, who lost narrowly to Infantino in the 2016 Fifa election.
Whether any of them will actually step forward is still unclear. What is clear is that Infantino’s coronation has turned into a contest.
Money, power and the Fifa Forward fight
At the heart of the row lies Fifa’s financial model and Infantino’s attempt to reshape it.
Under the existing Fifa Forward programme, all 211 member associations receive the same central payment over each four-year cycle. Infantino argued that by selling 20% of a new commercial arm – Fifa Forward Enterprise – to private investors, Fifa could increase those payments from $8m to $20m per association in the next cycle, and hand out a one-off $20m signing bonus to those who joined the scheme.
For critics, that looked less like development and more like patronage: a way to lock in support from smaller nations with huge cheques. The $20m bonus, tied to a deadline of 19 September, drew particular condemnation.
Uefa has now called for an immediate rethink of how Fifa distributes its wealth. “Uefa will begin work immediately with partners and stakeholders all over the world and right across the game to propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing Fifa Forward programme,” the statement said.
The argument is simple: with Fifa’s reserves at more than $5bn, there is no need to “sell off the family silver” to fund genuine development. “We must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in Fifa’s bank account to deliver the kick start that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of Fifa. But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.”
Infantino’s plan has been scrapped. On that, Uefa claimed victory. “This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has gone. The task of rebuilding trust in Fifa has only just begun.”
The battle over one commercial scheme is finished. The fight for control of world football, and for the soul of its governing body, now moves to the ballot box.
