Photo: Wikimedia Commons (free licence), cropped and styled by SportNestra — author and licence
Gianni Infantino apologised to FIFA Council members at a meeting held on Thursday in Zurich, the first since the 2026 World Cup. The FIFA president spoke amid controversy over a proposal to sell private investors a share of the commercial rights to the federation’s competitions, including the World Cup. He provided no new documents or further details on the questions considered most pressing.
The proposed sale of the World Cup rights was valued at $4.2 billion. Infantino had put it forward before abandoning the plan last July, after the end of the 2026 World Cup. No document on the proposal was presented at the meeting.
The questions extended beyond commercial rights. Council members also received no details about the red card shown to Folarin Balogun during the World Cup, or how Donald Trump intervened to help the national team striker.
Debbie Hewitt, FIFA vice-president and chair of the English Football Association, said European officials had asked Infantino for written evidence concerning his secret proposal to bring private investors into the World Cup. She said he told them to submit their questions in writing. “He has to answer these questions. And if he does not, he is certainly not fit to be president of FIFA,” Hewitt said.
It was the Council’s first meeting since Infantino triggered the crisis. Bernd Neuendorf, president of the German Football Association and one of the eight European football association delegates on the Council, said the meeting had not produced satisfactory answers. He also told reporters: “We need someone who demonstrates integrity, someone capable of restoring the reputation of the international federation, which has undoubtedly been tarnished.”
The Council also discussed a proposal to distribute about $6 billion to football federations from 2027 to 2030. The proposed amount was about $25 million per federation, compared with $1 million previously. The controversy followed the presentation of the World Cup sale proposal, which Infantino later abandoned.
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