Infantino faces FIFA revolt as confederations call on him to stand down

Aleksander Ceferin used an appearance at the Portugal Football Summit to deliver a warning about the fallout from FIFA’s failed private-investment plan. Addressing the event by video link on Wednesday, 23 September 2026, the UEFA president said: “Trust in our sport rests on three pillars: unity, transparency, and governance that serves the many, not the few. In recent times, all three were disregarded by people who had sworn to protect them.”

Ceferin did not name Gianni Infantino in those remarks. Yet the target was clear: FIFA’s president had pushed for a new company, FIFA Forward Enterprise, to hold FIFA assets including the World Cup, without consultation. The proposal would have sold a 20 percent stake in FIFA’s commercial rights, including World Cup media rights, to private investors.

The plan collapsed in July 2026 after intense opposition from UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and Concacaf.

For Infantino, who has led FIFA since 2016 and will stand for election for a fourth time in March 2027, the dispute has become his biggest leadership crisis since taking office.

Two days before Ceferin spoke, Infantino sent a letter to the FIFA Council and the presidents of all 211 member associations. It proposed an independent external review of FIFA’s governance framework, alongside reforms intended to improve transparency and participation.

The letter has failed to reassure multiple federations that had criticised the private-equity proposal. UEFA, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation, also known as the AFC, have kept up pressure on Infantino and called for him to step down even though the plan has been shelved.

“The project that shattered the unity of world football may be abolished, but the trust it broke has not returned, and repairing it is our work now,” Ceferin said.

The contest is now moving towards the FIFA presidential vote on 18 March 2027 in Morocco. All 211 member federations will decide who leads FIFA until 2031, while Infantino’s opponents have until 18 November to find an alternative candidate.

An Associated Press tally found that 87 of the 211 FIFA member federations had indicated support for Infantino.

He has been campaigning for those votes. In the past two weeks, his Qatari jet travelled from Saudi Arabia to New York, across the Caribbean, to northern Europe, then central and South-East Asia. Infantino has met at least 20 of the federations that will vote in March.

The pressure is also taking a legal turn. UEFA has begun preparing criminal legal proceedings against Infantino in three US courts over the FIFA Forward Enterprise plan.

Debbie Hewitt, FIFA vice-president and Football Association chair, has separately written to Infantino demanding all documents relating to the plan be released before the next FIFA Council meeting on 15 October.