European football leaders push to find a rival to unseat Infantino as Fifa president

Gianni Infantino opened a Fifa council meeting in Zurich with an apology. He had failed to consult the executive board about his since-abandoned plan to sell stakes in the World Cup and other tournaments to private investors.

The meeting lasted three and a half hours. The heads of the English and German Football Associations questioned whether Infantino was fit to govern, while European associations pressed him over the Fifa Forward Enterprise proposal, Donald Trump’s Fifa peace prize and the Folarin Balogun affair.

Debbie Hewitt, chair of the English Football Association, said afterwards: “We didn't get answers to anything that we had specifically requested. I think the man has to answer those questions, and if he doesn't answer those questions, he's not fit to be Fifa president. That was what was shared in the meeting.”

Bernd Neuendorf, president of the German Football Association, called during the Zurich meeting for wholesale reform of Fifa’s administration.

For UEFA, the sell-off proposal sharpened longstanding concern about Fifa’s projects and governance, and helped drive the effort to put a rival candidate before the voters. European football leaders are increasingly confident they will find someone to oppose Infantino in the Fifa presidential election.

The first declared challenger is Ramon Vega, the former Tottenham and Switzerland defender. It is his second attempt: in 2019, Vega did not secure the five voting federations needed to support an application.

Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA’s president, will not be that challenger. UEFA has confirmed that he will not run for the Fifa presidency, despite Ceferin’s call for Infantino to leave Fifa. Instead, Ceferin announced at a Berlin meeting with European national association leaders that he will seek a fourth term leading UEFA, taking his tenure to 2031.

Ceferin, a Slovenian lawyer, had led efforts by football officials since July to remove Infantino before choosing the UEFA contest instead. He had said after the 2024 vote that he intended to leave UEFA in 2027, at the end of a third term. His bid for a fourth term became possible after changes to presidential term limits were passed in Paris in 2024 despite opposition from the Football Association.

UEFA wants its preferred alternative to be “a respected and unifying figure, deeply rooted in football.” It says the candidate should “represent Fifa globally and provides leadership without exercising management functions.”

The search could extend beyond Europe as UEFA seeks support across Fifa’s 211 member federations. UEFA’s proposed reforms for Fifa won the support of every one of its members except Azerbaijan, which has pledged its vote to Infantino.

UEFA aims to have a credible alternative in place before the 18 November nomination deadline. The election is scheduled for March 18 in Rabat, Morocco.