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Fans say Infantino has ‘lost the right to lead’Statement also calls for Fifa to be reformedFans’ groups worldwide have launched a petition calling for the resignation of Gianni Infantino as Fifa president and for wholesale reform of the organisation.Infantino is under mounting pressure after being forced to abandon plans to seek private investment to run Fifa tournaments, including the men’s and women’s World Cups.Three continental confederations accused Infantino of “deception” in an open letter last week over the manner the plan was devised and presented, with Uefa, European football’s governing body, intent on boycotting Fifa events having “lost confidence” in Infantino’s leadership.Infantino retains support, notably in Africa and South America, but now fans’ organisations have called on him to step down, with a petition being launched on change.org.“The shameful attempt by one individual – the Fifa president himself – to sell off the World Cup to private investors exposed a betrayal football will never forget,” a statement on behalf of the fan organisations said. “Infantino’s plan was stitched together in secret. Negotiated behind closed doors. Hidden from Fifa’s own members and from the millions of people whose passion makes football what it is.”Fans are being encouraged to sign the petition, which already has support from all six Fifa confederations spanning continental and national fan groups. “A president who repeatedly betrays football and makes a mockery of our game has lost the right to lead it,” the statement continued. “For the credibility of Fifa – and for the future of the game – he must resign.”The petition also calls for reform of Fifa, including the formal involvement of supporters and other key football stakeholders in decisions that shape the future of the game.“The departure of Gianni Infantino is a first and a must, but that can only have a positive impact if it’s followed by some reform of the office and of governance,” said Ronan Evain, the executive director of Football Supporters Europe, which is a signatory to the petition. “If a man can concentrate so many powers then the governance of Fifa is not fit for purpose.“[Fifa] needs to start from scratch. All the reforms from 2016 have been erased or made irrelevant by Infantino. We need to be as open-minded as possible on the future of football governance and there are other models outside football, outside sport, that need to be looked into – the idea of rotating presidencies seems interesting.”

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Hungary’s Sandor Csanyi highly critical of Fifa presidentHe cites dismissal of COO Kevin Lamour as ‘final straw’Gianni Infantino has lost the support of another one of Fifa’s vice-presidents, with the Hungarian football federation chief, Sandor Csanyi, criticising the president’s “professional judgment, ethical standards and leadership”.In an explosive letter sent to Infantino on Tuesday, which was first obtained by the news agency Agence France-Presse, Csanyi states that he has “lost the confidence I previously placed in you” and describes the “unexpected dismissal” of Fifa’s chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, as the “final straw”.Lamour was sacked by Fifa on Monday after breaking ranks last month by criticising Infantino over his aborted plan to sell off shares in the World Cup to private investors.Csanyi’s letter continues the trend of senior global football figures deserting Infantino, with the Hungarian banker the fifth of Fifa’s eight vice-presidents to call for him to stand down.The Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, Victor Montagliani of Concacaf – the North and Central American and Caribbean Confederation – and Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al Khalifa of the Asian Football Confederation have all made their positions clear, as has the Football Association chair, Debbie Hewitt.Of the Fifa vice-presidents, only Alejandro Domínguez of South America’s Conmebol, Patrick Motsepe of the Confederation of African Football and Oceania’s Lambert Maltock are supporting Infantino.Csanyi is also a member of the 37-strong Fifa council, which is theoretically its main decision-making body, but has been repeatedly overlooked by Infantino.“My conviction that you are capable of continuing to lead Fifa successfully and effectively in accordance with the shared values that previously formed the basis of our cooperation has been undermined,” Csanyi wrote. “The final straw was the unexpected dismissal of Kevin Lamour.”The letter also cited “a number of controversial decisions” at this year’s World Cup, including Infantino’s involvement in “plans to outsource Fifa competitions and place them in the hands of external parties”.

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IFA points to ‘unprecedented crisis of confidence’‘Proper vision and direction for world football’ requiredGianni Infantino’s decision to sack his chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, after the Frenchman’s criticism of the World Cup sell-off plan has hardened some opposition to the Fifa president, with the efforts to force him out expected to intensify over the next few days.On Tuesday Israel became the latest Fifa member to officially withdraw their support for Infantino’s re-election in a letter sent by the head of the Israel Football Association (IFA), Moshe Zuares.The move is not a surprise as the IFA has been a member of Uefa since 1994 and Zuares sits on the European governing body’s executive committee, but it remains another blow to Infantino, who has invested significant political capital in attempting to improve sporting relations with Palestine.At Fifa’s congress in April Infantino tried to stage a photo involving the two delegations in Vancouver, but the Palestinian Football Federation president, Jibril Rajoub, refused to stand alongside IFA ⁠vice-president, Basim Sheikh ⁠Suliman. Undeterred by this setback, Infantino wants Israel and Palestine to compete in the first match of a new under-15 tournament in the United States next month, as reported by the Guardian in June.In his letter, which has been seen by the Guardian, Zuares says recent events have triggered an “unprecedented crisis of confidence” between the visions of Uefa and Fifa when it comes to global governance, adding that the rift is “profound, substantive, and principled, and compelling all stakeholders to reconsider the path forward”.In a decision he described as being taken unanimously after a meeting of the IFA’s board, Zuares confirmed: “We have no choice but to retract our previous letter of support, in the sincere hope that fruitful dialogue among all parties will eventually restore a shared, proper vision and direction for world football.”Israeli’s intervention echoes the withdrawal of support from other Uefa members including England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, and followed confirmation on Monday night that Lamour had left Fifa, having been deeply critical of Infantino’s Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal.“If that means I lose my job, then so be it,” he said prophetically in a statement on 31 July. “I will understand and respect that decision. At least I’ll sleep well tonight.”Another Uefa executive committee member, the former Wales Women international Laura McAllister, said the decision to sack Lamour “sends a deeply troubling message” and casts serious doubt over any efforts by the global governing body to recalibrate after the FFE scandal.McAllister, who is one of five Uefa vice-presidents and worked there with Lamour before his move to Fifa in 2024, praised her former colleague for standing up to Infantino’s doomed scheme. “During the shabby events of the past weeks, he showed himself to be a courageous advocate for the most important stakeholders in football,” she said in a statement. “Kevin’s sacking seriously weakens Fifa’s administration, while undermining this unique opportunity to shift the culture at Fifa and to reset the organisation on sporting values, not simply commercial and financial ones.“Fifa is not the president, it is the whole football family. As I have said repeatedly, world football needs strong, principled, independent leaders who are prepared to speak up, challenge when necessary, and stand firmly by their values and those of the global game. Instead, the loss of a leader of Kevin’s calibre sends a deeply troubling message to all of us seeking change.”

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Mosengo-Omba says Fifa’s congress backs InfantinoFecofa president admits he did not support sell-off planOne of Gianni Infantino’s closest allies has said he would “take a bullet” for the Fifa president and is confident that he still has the overwhelming support of its all-powerful congress despite mounting pressure.But Véron Mosengo-Omba, who served as Fifa’s chief member associations officer until 2021 and is now president of the Congolese Football Federation (Fecofa), also criticised Infantino’s Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme that wanted to sell off more than 20% of the World Cup to private investors.Uefa, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation have been increasing their efforts to oust Infantino since publishing an open letter calling for “leadership that serves football, not seeks to command it”.That came after Fifa had accused Infantino’s opponents of launching a “concerted and ongoing effort by some to undermine Fifa and its president”. The Fifa chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, was sacked on Monday after criticising Infantino’s ill-fated plan.As reported by the Guardian, Uefa has been seeking support from other confederations to call an emergency Fifa congress to trigger a vote of no confidence in Infantino, although there are serious doubts whether they have enough support to reach the threshold of 106 of the 211 Fifa members required to unseat him.Mosengo-Omba – a close friend of Infantino’s from their university days in Switzerland, who was elected unopposed as Fecofa president in May – has admitted that he was against the controversial plan but backed Infantino to stay on as president. “Most of the federations are supporting him. Just ask the congress,” he told the Guardian. “I didn’t send a letter of support [for Infantino] because I didn’t agree with the way the project was done. Now people are trying to attack Gianni but I’m ready to take a bullet for him.”Mosengo-Omba added: “Gianni came with a proposal. Uefa is selling the Champions League and the Euros – they are independent companies. He was doing the same. Gianni came with a similar proposal but now he has withdrawn it. So what’s the problem? What I didn’t like and where I think Gianni committed a mistake was the way it was done. Because the risk was it could have seen a lot of [private] companies organising the World Cup. That is my reproach to him.”In partnership with the US bank JP Morgan, Infantino had planned for FFE to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling 21% of the World Cup’s commercial rights to investors, with promises of an increase in distribution of “over $10bn” (£7.5bn) then being redistributed back to Fifa’s 211 member associations.Mosengo-Omba, who stepped down as general secretary of the Confederation of African Football in March after reaching the age limit, said that while the initial plan had been soundly rejected he is weighing up whether to propose another scheme that would see each confederation being offered the chance to buy a stake in the World Cup in order to generate more revenue for its members.“Gianni’s project was good. I would buy it but make some changes,” he said. “You could, for example, say that a confederation can buy 20%. We could do that. That’s my idea – I could come with the proposal in the next congress, maybe. Because I need money to develop football in the Congo. The people here have nothing. We would get $20m a year if this happened and that can have a big impact in my country.”

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A senior Fifa blazer held in such rare high regard that the prescient synth-pop duo Erasure named a single after him long before he entered the intoxicating world of football administration, Kevin Lamour was a lone dissenting voice inside Fifa’s lair when Gianni Infantino’s plot to flog part of the World Cup to private investors – potentially on the cheap – was rumbled last month. A plan so half-baked it succeeded only in ruining the holidays of Proper Journalists who naively hoped they might enjoy some leisure time after weeks of being studiously ignored by Gianni in the foyers of various luxury hotels dotted across North America, the then chief operating officer of Fifa had witheringly described the sell-off proposal as “the project of one person”. Refusing to sign off on the deal, Lamour said the administration had been “deceived” by Gianni, adding that if speaking up against his boss “means I lose my job, then so be it. I will understand and respect that decision. At least I’ll sleep well tonight.”While Football Daily presumes the Frenchman has been dozing with one eye open during the fortnight or so that has passed since he aired his reservations in what will have been viewed as an act of gross insubordination, it is worth noting that Gianni’s wheeze was quietly shelved just a few days afterwards. On Monday night, however, Lamour will have slept the sleep of the just after being handed his P45 and booted through the door marked ‘Do One!’ by his now former paymasters. “Fifa can confirm that the working relationship between Fifa and Kevin Lamour as Fifa’s Chief Operating Officer has ended on 17 August 2026,” honked a spokesperson. “Fifa thanks Kevin for his two years of service and wishes him the best of luck for the future. No further comment will be made on the matter.”Given their now customary lack of transparency, it is no surprise that Fifa is not planning on commenting any further on the matter, but others have been eager to have their say. Never backwards in coming forwards and a constant thorn in Gianni’s side, it was no surprise to see Lise Klavness, head of the Norwegian Football Association shouting from the first cab off the rank. “Now he is thrown out and we are supposed to move on,” she fumed. “It’s unacceptable, it’s management by fear,” she said of the treatment meted out to Lamour, a man she described as the best football administrator she has ever met. “Now we also have to call upon Fifa leadership and the administration to not submit to orders you know are not in the interests of football.”While the evidence of the Geopolitics World Cup and its aftermath suggest Klaveness might have more luck calling upon fish to stop swimming, her comments have been interpreted as a dig at the Swedish Fifa blazer Mattias Grafström, who is understood to have sacked Lamour at the behest of Gianni, who continues to cling on to power like a barnacle on a ship’s hull. “Individuals, unstable moments and unfortunate episodes come and go,” wrote Grafström in an email sent to staff. “The institution, its mission and its responsibility towards world football continue.” For now, it seems the Fifa sackings will continue until morale improves.“Guys I want to confess something, I’m [eff]ing divorced from the most beautiful woman on your planet. It’s my wife, my ex-wife – I love her unbelievably, but we lost the passion. For many reasons, we lost the passion. I love her? Yes, absolutely. She loves me? Yes, but we lost the passion. How do you play football, because you are paid? Or because of something inside? Where is the passion? In your life, whatever you are going to do, do it with passion. I don’t want any good players. I want players with passion” – in a new Amazon documentary, Pep Guardiola is shown using revelations about his private life to try to end a poor run of results. Yep. Another relationship issue is exposed when the former City manager has a big barney with Kyle Walker.double quotation markUpon reading the final article in Monday’s missive [full email edition – Football Daily Ed], I noted the final sentence of Memory Lane commenced with “(insert name of whoever is in the news as being on the end of a bad foul, bad behaviour, etc, here)”. I may be doing you a gross disservice but I couldn’t help feeling this was a Wizard of Oz moment where the curtain was momentarily drawn back, revealing (insert witty denouement here)” – Anthony Brady.double quotation markFurther to Monday’s letter about players’ wages. To put things into perspective, if we estimate the average Premier League player’s wage to be, say, £5m per annum, or £100,000 per week, this works out that in one week such a player gets (hardly earns) more than the likes of Jimmy Greaves earned in his complete football career. If we go back to players like Finney, Milburn and Lofthouse the difference is even greater” – Stewart McGuinness.double quotation markI’m glad Rob Smyth was dissing a lousy movie and not the Gigli, Beniamino, the Italian tenor, in my humble opinion the best there ever has been. Well, I needed something to take my mind off the football!” – Bob Cushion.If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Anthony Brady. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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Kevin Lamour said Fifa administration was ‘deceived’Chief operating officer knew he could lose his jobThe Fifa chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, has been sacked after openly criticising Gianni Infantino’s ill-fated plan to sell parts of the World Cup to private investors.In a significant development at the pinnacle of world football’s deeply troubled governing body, Lamour has departed less than two years after joining from a previous role at Uefa. He had come out strongly against Infantino’s FFE scheme after it was revealed, saying Fifa’s administration had been “deceived” and that the president “believes he embodies Fifa when he is supposed to be at its service”.Lamour had also made clear that he would countenance losing his job as a consequence of opposing the plan, which was shelved hours after he spoke out on 31 July. “If that means I lose my job, then so be it,” he said in a statement. “I will understand and respect that decision. At least I’ll sleep well tonight.”The precise circumstances of his sacking are unclear but the Fifa secretary general, Mattias Grafström, informed staff in an email that Lamour would be leaving the organisation.A Fifa spokesperson said: “Fifa can confirm that the working relationship between Fifa and Kevin Lamour as Fifa’s chief operating officer has ended on 17 August 2026. Fifa thanks Kevin for his two years of service and wishes him the best of luck for the future. No further comment will be made on the matter.”In the statement that appears to have expedited his departure, Lamour also said his colleagues “deserve better than contempt and intimidation”. He added: “My feeling is that we all want to be proud to work for Fifa, and today, unfortunately, it seems that is no longer the case for many of us.” On the same day one of Infantino’s senior advisers, Carlos Cordeiro, resigned in protest at Infantino’s proposals.Lamour had been Uefa’s deputy secretary general before joining Fifa, and had first joined the European body in 2007. His departure is all the more eye-catching for his longstanding working relationship with Infantino, with whom he also worked at Uefa. Infantino continues to be under huge pressure after the failure of his scheme, with efforts to force his removal continuing.

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Women’s football has much to gain from the kind of reforms that threats to snub upcoming tournaments might prompt. Infantino should be taken on“And I say to all the women … Pick the right battles. Pick the right fights. You have the power to change. You have the power to convince us men what we have to do and what we don’t have to do. You do it. Just do it. With men, with Fifa, you will find open doors. Just push the doors. They are open.”Those were the condescending words of Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, three years ago during a tone-deaf speech in Sydney, which left his audience, including some of the most senior women in the game, exasperated. It is a damning indictment of Infantino’s tenure that his patronising monologue on the eve of the Women’s World Cup final now barely even creeps into the top 10 of the most controversial moments since his latest re-election, in March 2023.Yet, with the Swiss administrator’s future hanging finely in the balance, the power to enforce once-in-a-generation change at Fifa may well be in the hands of women’s teams after all, as the threat of a boycott lingers over September’s Women’s Under-20 World Cup, the Women’s Under-17 World Cup, which gets under way in October, and that month’s senior World Cup playoff ties for next summer’s major showpiece, the Women’s World Cup in Brazil.This week Lisa Nandy told the BBC that Infantino “should go” and, overall, the culture secretary spoke well on the matter, but she added that she would not support a boycott of the U20 World Cup and said she was “not generally in favour of sporting boycotts full stop – because they unfairly penalise athletes and competitors who are not responsible for the reason that these boycotts take place”. On that specific element, it is important to respectfully disagree with Nandy and the many others who share that view.Yes, it would feel deeply unjust for football’s political turmoil to have an adverse impact on the development of the world’s best young women footballers through no fault of their own, but that is why any participating countries being prepared to boycott the upcoming under-20 tournament would send such a powerful message.It is tempting to follow the stance that many working within the women’s game are taking privately, which is that it would be a travesty if women’s football, having been neglected and let down by the authorities for generations, was harmed again by disruption to such a significant tournament, but the painful reality is that the young generation of women’s stars stand to be most affected by the decisions that are made by governing bodies in the days, weeks and months ahead.And yes, is it unfair for women’s teams, and young women’s teams in particular, to shoulder the responsibility of taking a stance against the now-scrapped vision of selling off a stake in Fifa tournaments – which, we should remember, would include all Fifa’s women’s tournaments too – through the murky concept of the Fifa Forward Enterprise subsidiary, but it is their futures, and the organisation of the World Cups finals that will come to define their careers, which are at stake.And the future of the governance of the sport, and decisions about who runs the game, is a debate that women’s football players, coaches and fans all deserve a much more vocal say in, on far more deep-rooted injustices than those that have dominated the news in recent weeks.Is it fair that, for example, there are only two women – Paola López of Mexico and Vietnam’s Thi My Dung Nguyen – among the 18 members of Fifa’s disciplinary committee, which hit the headlines amid the farcical Folarin Balogun scandal this summer? Or that all 10 of the members of Fifa’s Future of Football committee are men?Is it fair that, of the 37 members of Fifa’s council, the organisation’s strategic and oversight body, 29 are men and only eight are women? Or that seven of the eight vice-presidents are men?Is it fair that the 2023 Women’s World Cup prize money totalled $110m and this summer’s men’s World Cup’s prize pot was around eight times larger, at a record-breaking $871m?It would be wrong to say that there have not been positive improvements in women’s football across the world since Infantino took office in 2016. The past decade has included long overdue, albeit still very important and welcome, enhancements to provisions for players and coaches at women’s tournaments, a sizeable growth in financial investment and huge uplift in prize money, albeit from a very low bar. It is also fair to say that there are many key figures in the women’s game, across all continents, who support Infantino and are appreciative of the gradual improvements that are being made, while acknowledging that there is still a very long way to go.But everyone associated with women’s football should be concerned that the 25-page sales pitch that was titled Fifa Forward Enterprise Member Materials contained only one token reference to women’s football. It is why the England defender Lucy Bronze was right to use her voice to say she backed a boycott “for the good of the game”.On Friday morning, the latest twist in Infantino’s future delivered both positives and negatives for the under-fire president, as on the one hand, the Oceania Football Confederation declared its support for Infantino, while the confederation’s biggest member, New Zealand, withdrew its backing for him. New Zealand, impeccable co-hosts of the most recent Women’s World Cup, will have had plenty of reasons to support Infantino but has chosen to use its platform to call for “stronger governance, accountability and transparency”.Shortly before that news, on Thursday, a feature article was published on Fifa’s website entitled “Europe’s finest hours at the Under-20 Women’s World Cup”, looking back at dazzling performances of young breakthrough stars such as Spain’s Salma Paralluelo’s in 2022 or the Germany striker Alexandra Popp in 2010. Next month six European teams – including the hosts, Poland – are scheduled to show the world what they are capable of, but – whether the timing of that article was purely coincidental, political or ironic – European women’s under-20 teams’ finest hour may still be yet to come.

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Ultimatum issued hours before plan was scrappedEuropean Football Clubs demanded Infantino back downEurope’s leading clubs threatened not to participate in future Club World Cups unless Gianni Infantino withdrew his Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme, issuing their ultimatum hours before the plan was scrapped.In a letter to the Fifa secretary general, Mattias Grafström, seen by the Guardian, the influential European Football Clubs (EFC) group warned its cooperation with future tournaments would hinge on Infantino backing down. It said the threat will hold unless a joint venture between EFC and Fifa – a framework for which has already been agreed – is completed before television rights can be sold for the 2028 Women’s Club World Cup.The letter, dated 31 July and signed by the EFC chief executive, Charlie Marshall, said Infantino’s actions could constitute a “substantial breach” of the bodies’ existing memorandum of understanding (MoU) and suggested this could be grounds for its termination. It floated the idea that EFC and its clubs may push back against the international match calendar and its player release rules, which are crucial to ensuring national team tournaments can function. Infantino shelved the privately backed Football Forward Enterprise (FFE) in the early hours of 1 August after widespread condemnation.Fundamental to EFC’s complaints was the impression FFE would bring all broadcasting, commercial and sponsorship rights under its own umbrella. The letter asked Fifa to confirm this and said it would take decisive action if these elements were not included in the long-proposed joint venture, whose creation is enshrined in the MoU and intended to involve managing the commercial side of global club competitions. It witheringly wrote that progress on the tie-in had “unlike the FFE proposal, made no meaningful progress over the past year”. EFC already has a similar joint venture with Uefa, named UC3, which was launched in 2025.A potentially incendiary section read: “Unless a fully operational Fifa-EFC CWC joint venture, with exclusive authority over, among other things, all commercial and operational matters, is established well ahead of the women’s 2028 Fifa CWC rights cycle, EFC will not support – and its member clubs will not participate in – any future edition, including the women’s and men’s 2028 and 2029 Fifa CWC.”In theory the threat still holds although Fifa, in a response to EFC’s letter since Infantino climbed down, is understood to have promised a swift meeting to keep the joint venture on track. EFC’s position followed concerns raised by a vast number of clubs around Europe, who were angered by the lack of consultation around the design of FFE. One major European club expressed concerns in its own letter, also seen by the Guardian, saying it would support EFC in any “firmer collective action” if necessary and called for “more rigorous and transparent governance processes”.Any European withdrawal from Club World Cups would in practice mean those tournaments could not run. EFC and Fifa operated last year’s Club World Cup, the first to take place with 32 teams, using a short-term prototype for any future joint venture. No hosts have yet been announced for the new-look Women’s Club World Cup or for the next edition of the men’s tournament in 2029.EFC’s letter also raised the ongoing delay, first reported by the Guardian in February, in distributing £185m of solidarity money to clubs that did not participate in the Club World Cup. Transparency over the event’s financial performance was also requested.“We ask that you urgently share the final surplus revenue generated by the 2025 Fifa WC, together with a full profit and loss statement, so that all revenues, expenses and costs can be properly assessed in line with our partnership in this competition,” it said. “The absence of information on this matter, as with the lack of a solution on CWC solidarity for over a year, is also of serious concern and disappointment to EFC and our member clubs.”The Guardian understands there is increasing optimism that this issue is on the verge of resolution although a notional average £50,000 windfall for every global top-flight club, if the pot was divided equally, pales in comparison with the £84m reward long since banked by last year’s winners Chelsea.Referring to clubs releasing players for international duty EFC continued: “Our memorandum of understanding, set to expire on 30 December 2030, includes EFC’s and its member clubs’ acceptance of the international match calendar and the release rules. Both are directly relevant for Fifa’s non-European member associations and to any value FFE may have.” It said Fifa’s apparent commercial vision for FFE constituted a “serious breach of trust” and warned the MoU could be jeopardised.The letter demonstrates the extraordinary level of leverage EFC, which is chaired by the Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser al-Khelaifi, can claim over Fifa and its increasing influence on football’s future. The organisation, set up in 2008 as a lobby group for clubs around the continent, now has well over 800 members although only a minority hold full voting rights. Some stakeholders elsewhere in football’s ecosystem have expressed fears about the level of power it has assumed. A separate representative body, the Union of European Clubs, was created in 2023 to represent smaller sides but is not recognised by Uefa.One potential consequence of EFC’s discussions with Fifa could, in the medium term, be its expansion into a group representing clubs around the world. More immediately, last month’s letter demanded that Fifa deliver on a previous promise to fully integrate Al-Khelaifi into the Fifa council, which is purportedly its main decision-making body.

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With Oceania praising Fifa on Friday, all six confederations have finally had their say on the fallout from the World Cup sell-off planThe Oceania Football Confederation’s (OFC) decision to belatedly issue a statement following this week’s executive committee meeting praising Fifa’s “progress achieved over the last decade” means all six continental confederations have finally had their say on the fallout from the World Cup sell-off plan that has split world football, with the votes seeming tied at three apiece on the key issue of whether Gianni Infantino should remain as Fifa president.Significantly however, the individual member associations will not necessarily follow the lead set by their regional confederations, as New Zealand Football (NZF) quickly illustrated by contradicting the OFC’s position in withdrawing their support for Infantino and calling for an independent review of the sell-off plan.NZF is the biggest federation in the OFC and has previously benefited from Infantino’s patronage as the co-hosts of the 2023 Women’s World Cup with Australia, which demonstrates how even some former allies are turning on the beleaguered president in an unprecedented situation for the global game.While the OFC stopped just short of providing a ringing endorsement for Infantino’s re-election other confederations have been more bullish, with the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and the South American confederation (Conmebol) boldly declaring they want him to stay on for a third full term.The 56-year-old has also received public declarations of support from individual Fifa member associations, some of whom are tied to the confederations who want him out, most significantly Mexico in Concacaf and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the Asian Football Confederation.Significantly the 2034 World Cup hosts Saudi Arabia have yet to declare their hand as the Saudi Football Federation is without a president, with elections taking place this month, and their position could be key in determining how many Asian countries follow the lead of the AFC.Concacaf’s 41 members appear more united, although the Grenada Football Association on Friday joined Mexico in declaring their support for Infantino.Mexico is a special case as they have made clear they want to leave the confederation in any case to join Conmebol to gain more lucrative matches against Brazil and Argentina, but senior figures at Uefa are also convinced that individual African countries can be picked off and persuaded to join the rebels.After three weeks of frenetic activity football’s civil war has hardened into a stalemate, which is unlikely to be definitively resolved until next year’s presidential election at Fifa Congress in Rabat in March.With strong allies in Africa and South America, plus the public support of the US president, Donald Trump, there is no prospect of Infantino resigning or withdrawing his candidacy for re-election so a bitterly fought seven-month campaign lies ahead.The most immediate pinch-point is next month’s Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Poland, which European countries have threatened to boycott, although it is unclear whether any teams will actually withdraw. Despite being on a war footing it is likely that Uefa and Fifa will reach a public truce in the next few weeks that would enable the competition to go ahead.Beyond that the next deadline is 18 November, when candidates for the Fifa presidency must declare their hand, leaving the Uefa-led alliance with just over three months to find and unite behind an alternative to Infantino.The Concacaf president, Victor Montagliani, is seen as the most likely challenger, but will only stand if he is convinced he can win.With an electorate of 211 Fifa members the rebels are far from certain they are close enough to getting the 106 votes required to oust Infantino.

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OFC’s 11 votes could prove crucial in Fifa electionStance shows continued backing from smaller nationsThe Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) has declared their support for Gianni Infantino following demands for the Fifa president to resign from Uefa, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation in a development that further highlights world football’s civil war.After a meeting of its executive committee in Fiji on Wednesday, the OFC issued a statement on Friday praising “the progress achieved over the last decade” by Fifa in its first public comments since the abandoned World Cup sell-off plan emerged this month.In another sign of division however, the OFC’s biggest member and only nation to qualify for this summer’s World Cup, New Zealand, broke ranks with the confederation by withdrawing their backing for Infantino and calling for an independent review of the Fifa Forward Enterprise plan, which has been demanded by the three rebel groups.The OFC is the smallest confederation in world football with just 11 full members, but with Infantino facing a leadership challenge for the first time in a decade at next year’s presidential election those votes could prove crucial.Uefa, Concacaf and the AFC provide 143 of Fifa’s 211 members, but powerful countries within those blocks most notably Mexico and Qatar have already made it clear that they still support Infantino, while others may also defy the orders of their confederation.The OFC is the last confederation to declare its position and their stance completes the symbolic division of world football, with the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and South American confederation (Conmebol) also backing Infantino.In addition their stance illustrates the continued backing for Infantino among smaller nations such as American Samoa and the Cook Islands, which is likely to emerge as a theme of the presidential election.“The OFC Executive Committee welcomes Fifa’s decision to withdraw the FFE (Fifa Forward Enterprise) proposal and its commitment to review the issues surrounding the project,” the OFC said in a statement.“OFC recognises the progress achieved over the last decade in advancing football development in Oceania under Fifa’s leadership and encourages Fifa to use the review as an opportunity to identify and implement any changes that may be necessary.”The OFC has repeatedly declined to answer questions from the Guardian on its position over the last fortnight, and delayed releasing a statement until two days after its ExCo meeting.New Zealand’s decision to break ranks goes some way towards explaining their reticence to commit in a move that has added significance given the federation have benefited from Infantino’s leadership of Fifa as co-hosts of the 2023 Women’s World Cup with Australia.“After careful consideration, New Zealand Football has formed the view that decisions and actions within Fifa have contributed to a breakdown in trust and increased division within international football, and that an independent review is required to restore confidence and trust,” NZF said in a statement.“NZF believes this point in time represents an opportunity for all Fifa member associations to advocate for stronger governance, accountability and transparency which are fundamental in maintaining confidence of the administration of the global game.”The NZF chief executive, Andrew Pragnell, said that their decision to withdraw support from Infantino was based on their values.“Everyone who’s connected to the game around the globe deserves to know where we stand,” he said. “New Zealand is a country that’s always led based on its values, and we’re really proud to put those first and put the fans and the football community first, because I think right now there are some pretty strong calls for change.“There are an incredible group of hard-working professionals at that organisation who’ve been amazing to work with and actually our thoughts are with them at this time, because it’s a difficult time for them to be in this situation as well, and that’s concerning for us.“So, while we reflect on a lot of positives that have come out of the organisation, ultimately, this type of proposal should never have emerged in the way it did.”