By Iain Axon
ZURICH, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Gianni Infantino faces the soccer leaders who want him gone on Thursday in his first meeting with FIFA’s top brass since his plan to sell a stake in FIFA tournaments, including the World Cup, collapsed.
Infantino has faced calls to resign from the leaders of three regional football confederations – UEFA (Europe), AFC (Asia) and CONCACAF (North and Central America and the Caribbean) – and their representatives will be present in Zurich for a FIFA Council meeting.
They will be joined by their counterparts from Africa, South America and Oceania.
On the agenda will be a discussion of the failed FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme, which Infantino was forced to abandon within days of announcing it in July.
Under the plan, Infantino proposed selling a minority stake in a FIFA commercial subsidiary to private investors, with a company launched by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, identified as the proposed lead investor.
The 37-member council will also address FIFA’s governance, with some of the sport’s most powerful figures determined to limit Infantino’s powers if they cannot force him out of office.
Infantino, 56, will stand for re-election in March 2027, with a November 18 deadline looming for potential candidates to submit their nominations.
Last week, former. Switzerland and Tottenham Hotspur defender Ramon Vega announced that he intended to stand, but he has not confirmed whether he has the backing of the five national associations required to enter the race.
The FFE plan exposed a split in world soccer, with Aleksander Ceferin, Salman Al Khalifa and Victor Montagliani -- the presidents respectively of UEFA, AFC and CONCACAF -- saying it was time for a change at the top of FIFA.
However, Infantino has been canvassing support as he bids to remain in power and received a standing ovation when he met African soccer leaders last week in Cape Verde.
He is also expected to be backed by South America at next year’s election in Rabat, Morocco. Despite the AFC’s criticism of his leadership, many countries within Asia, including a bloc of Arab nations, have offered their support.
PEACE PRIZE
People familiar with the matter told Reuters that although the chances of finding someone to replace Infantino were remote, his opponents were determined to leave him more isolated and curb his powers.
In addition to reviewing FFE, council members are expected to discuss FIFA’s financial reserves and how much money it can release to member associations, as well as its disciplinary procedures, governance framework and Peace Prize, which was controversially awarded to U.S. President Donald Trump last year.
Last month, UEFA and CONCACAF called on FIFA to release $10 million to each of its 211 member associations, countering Infantino’s FFE proposal under which associations could receive $20 million in development funding and potentially access a further $20 million.
Emanuel Medeiros, founder and Global CEO of Sport Integrity Global Alliance, a pressure group for better governance in sport, said FIFA needed to have a “frank discussion” in Zurich.
“The eyes of the world are on them,” he said. “The world of football expects to see a council that takes this unique opportunity to establish a genuinely independent, comprehensive and transparent governance review… We certainly wish to see a new impetus, a new dynamic.”
However, lawyer and politician Miguel Maduro, who was chairman of the FIFA Governance Committee in 2016 before being sacked by Infantino, said he would be surprised if anything meaningful came of Thursday’s meeting.
“They may announce the setting up of a Working Group or even an Independent Review of FIFA Governance but the credibility of either exercise will be very limited in the light of FIFA’s track record,” he said.
“Such an exercise, if not genuinely independent and enforceable, might be more of the same: a window dressing exercise simply aimed at reducing public pressure and to state they have now addressed whatever problems they had.”
(Editing by Julien Pretot and Pritha Sarkar)
