FIFA presidency under fire as CONCACAF, UEFA slam Infantino over scrapped World Cup investment plan
The climbdown failed to quell the crisis. UEFA, while welcoming the withdrawal, said Infantino has lost the “confidence” of European football and much of the wider football community over what it called a “shabby, back room, opaque deal.”
“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family,” the statement reads.
UEFA accused the 56-year-old Swiss official of breaking promises made when he first won election as FIFA president in 2016, when he pledged transparency and vowed that FIFA’s finances belonged to member associations, not the presidency. “On both these promises, he has failed to deliver,” UEFA said, noting FIFA’s reserves stand at more than $5 billion. “He has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.”
CONCACAF, whose members include 2026 World Cup co-hosts the United States, Canada and Mexico, welcomed Infantino’s reversal but said the episode reflected deeper governance failures. “This concern is not CONCACAF’s alone. It is shared across many confederations, Member Associations and those who serve and love the game,” the confederation said, adding that a proposal of this scale did not reach that stage by accident.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), representing 47 member nations, adopts more measured language in also welcoming the plan’s withdrawal. The Kuala Lumpur-based body says any initiative affecting global football should be “presented and discussed with the Confederations, the FIFA Council, Member Associations and other stakeholders in a timely, transparent and meaningful manner.”
The backlash comes less than two weeks after Infantino oversaw a World Cup widely regarded as a commercial and sporting success: the first edition to feature 48 teams, staged across three host nations. The scale of the fallout now casts fresh doubt over his previously uncontested path to re-election for a final term next year.
