October 14 – After his World Cup liquidation plans were abandoned, Gianni Infantino’s future will be at stake at Thursday’s FIFA Council crisis, where the FIFA president will try to deflect pressure with a proposal to increase development funding.
The FIFA Council is convening, in hybrid form, for the first time since the World Cup and Infantino’s aborted privatization plans, the biggest scandal and crisis the world governing body has faced since FIFAGate in 2015.
Under Infantino, FIFA Council meetings have generally become rubber-stamping exercises, but this time the cold war between UEFA and FIFA will be on full display. UEFA is one of a number of stakeholders who have said they have lost confidence in the FIFA president and will press this point at the Council meeting. UEFA’s position is that Infantino must go and they are not alone in this belief.
It is also understood that the futures of FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom and Elkhan Mammadov will be discussed. Following last week’s UEFA meeting in Berlin, the European confederation has put forward proposals for a more responsible general secretary, as part of a wider package of governance reform proposals. Grafstrom angered European officials when in an open letter he appeared to criticize Infantino before towing the party line at a crisis meeting in Rabat a few days later.
As director of the member associations, Mammadov has been campaigning with Infantino to win support, get votes and align the football federations. His native Azerbaijan broke European unity last week and will support Infantino. Latvia is the only other country expected to support Infantino.
In recent weeks, Infantino and Mammadov have traveled to the Caribbean, the Gulf, East Asia and Africa.
Infantino did so on a private jet provided by Qatar, as part of FIFA’s sponsorship deal with Qatar Airways. UEFA has proposed that “No FIFA resources may be used for personal or electoral interests”.
FIFA’s finances are expected to come under scrutiny in the Council with demands for greater transparency. Earlier this week, The Times reported that Infantino received an undisclosed salary of $1.7 million linked to the World Cup. Sources, they alleged to The Times, helped Infantino maintain a lavish lifestyle in Miami, where he moved with his family following his departure from Doha, Qatar, after the 2022 World Cup.
FIFA denied the allegation, saying in a statement that “FIFA does not pay a second salary to the FIFA president and complies with all reporting requirements in relation to compensation. The annual compensation of the FIFA president, as well as other contractual benefits, is decided by the independent Compensation Subcommittee.”
Be that as it may, Infantino’s full salary has yet to be revealed in FIFA’s full accounts
Apart from a review of the FIFA Forward Enterprise and FIFA governance, the Council will also discuss the FIFA Peace Prize, which was unilaterally invented by Infantino last year and awarded to US President Donald Trump, a reflection of the close relationship between the pair. Earlier this week, Le Monde and the New York Times reported that FIFA is paying $4 million over a seven-year period to rent the FIFA office in Trump Tower. It is an office that is mostly inactive.
Once in place, Infantino will seek to resist pressure by offering member associations more money for development.
Under new plans, and prompted by a proposal put forward by UEFA president Alexander Ceferin and Concacaf president Victor Montagliani, FIFA would increase its development fund to $6.35 billion in the 2027-30 cycle, including $25 million for each of the 211 football associations.
The Ceferin/Infantino plan proposed doubling the member associations’ development grants to $20 million with a provision to release more development funding if FIFA’s reserves exceeded $6 billion by the end of the year.
See: FIFA’s proposal for additional $15 million for MA renews questions about the real purpose of the FFE scheme
Infantino says the 2026 World Cup brought in $15 billion in revenue, beating an initial prediction of $11 billion that was revised down to $13 billion.
Despite the plan, FIFA’s boss can expect an uproar over development funding and the abandoned sale of the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) World Cup that triggered its current crisis. As an insider told Insideworldfootball: “Just because he accepts a proposal that everyone wants, it doesn’t let him go.”
Infantino is holding out for re-election in March 2027. He still enjoys broad support in Africa and South America and is lobbying hard using his FIFA resources in the Caribbean and Asia. Opponents have until Nov. 17 to find a candidate to challenge him. Although they would rather he just throw in the towel and become another murky note in FIFA’s presidential history.
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