Uefa declares loss of confidence in Gianni Infantino as backlash to cancelled World Cup sell-off plan builds

Uefa has declared it has lost confidence in the Fifa leadership as president Gianni Infantino faces open revolt over his controversial scheme to sell stakes in the World Cup.

Fifa was forced to climb down on the plans to open the World Cup to private equity investors late on Friday night after backlash from multiple football federations including Uefa, which voted to boycott Fifa tournaments in protest, as well as from within the governing body itself.

Infantino’s long-term adviser Carlos Cordeiro, a key figure within Fifa, chose to quit in protest over the initial proposals, while Fifa’s chief operating officer said that Infantino “deceived” staff over his plans.

Infantino’s position remains under serious threat despite the climbdown, with Uefa announcing on Saturday that it had lost confidence in his leadership and slamming the “shabby, back room” deal.

“The current Fifa leadership has not only lost Uefa’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family,” it said. Concacaf and the AFC also criticised the proposals, pitting a significant number of Fifa’s member associations in direct opposition to the governing body.

It quoted a speech Infantino made when he came to power a decade ago in a lengthy statement outlining its position.

The statement “welcomed” the decision to cancel the scheme, adding: “The proposal was unanimously rejected by Uefa’s national associations and by many other federations and confederations of all sizes around the world, whose job it is to protect football.

“Uefa thanks all the fans, leagues, clubs, players, individuals, associations and confederations that opposed the scheme, alongside the many Prime Ministers, Heads of State and commentators who have demonstrated to the Fifa President that football is not for sale.”

The UK’s new prime minister Andy Burnham was among those to condemn the plans, saying Infantino was the “wrong man” to lead football’s governing body.

Uefa’s statement continued: “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. We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.

“It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, Uefa will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again. That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table. The current Fifa leadership has not only lost Uefa’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.

“When Gianni Infantino asked for the trust and the votes of Fifa’s Member Associations to elect him as their President in 2016, he said, ‘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,’ before telling the assembled stakeholders, ‘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.’

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.”