Infantino to hold crisis meeting with senior FIFA staff

Under-pressure FIFA president Gianni Infantino will hold a crisis meeting with senior staff in Morocco on Wednesday.

Senior staff have been asked to attend the meeting in Rabat after the pressure on the Swiss ramped up on Tuesday as:

Infantino is now set for crunch talks on Wednesday with senior FIFA staff after he was forced to withdraw his plan to create FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), a company to run the commercial and operational aspects of FIFA's tournaments.

Will Infantino resign at crisis meeting?

Sky Sports News' Kaveh Solhekol:

"This is going to be a very, very tense meeting. We don't know how it's going to end up.

"What is his stance going to be at this meeting? Is he going to throw in the towel and say, 'I can read the room. I can feel which way the wind is blowing. I'm losing support all over the world. I'm losing support inside FIFA as well. I'm going to do the honourable thing and resign.'

"Or is he going to say, 'I fight on. I'm the FIFA president. If you want me to leave, you're going to have to take me down. And I still believe that I have significant support around the world, especially in South America, Africa and Asia.'

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"To get to the top of FIFA, you need to be a politician. And if you're a politician, surely you have some instincts. You can sense that you are losing support. You can sense that your position is untenable.

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"You sense that you have to do the right thing and resign. Of course, it's going to be in terrible circumstances and he's going to resign in disgrace. If he does decide to resign, this is not the way he would have liked to go out.

"But he's made a cataclysmic error of judgment. And it was not just one quick decision that he got wrong. What we know is that he was plotting with some people close to him for quite a long time to sell off a stake in the World Cup to private investors.

"I haven't spoken to anybody who knows how FIFA works and how football politics works who thinks that Infantino can survive."

Wenger says FIFA U-turn 'necessary'

Former Arsenal manager Wenger, FIFA's chief of global football development, issued a statement on Tuesday saying he was "not involved" in the plan but that the decision to withdraw it was "absolutely necessary and beyond question".

Wenger had faced criticism in recent days for his silence over the FFE plans but spoke out on Tuesday to welcome the withdrawal of the project, adding: "I firmly believe in an independent FIFA that serves our game with commitment, transparency, and integrity."

Image:

Arsene Wenger (left) with Infantino

FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafstrom, the second most senior figure in the organisation after Infantino, sent an email to FIFA staff addressing the "sad and reproachable series of events" of the last week "which thankfully concluded with the project being permanently abandoned".

Grafstrom also thanked FIFA staff for their efforts during the World Cup but accepted they had now been "thrown into the middle of a turmoil, which is difficult to comprehend and accept".

Grafstrom promised staff would be "defended and safeguarded from the political context we currently experience", pointedly adding: "Individuals, unstable moments and unfortunate episodes come and go. The institution, its mission and its responsibility towards world football continue."

The comments from Wenger and Grafstrom follow the resignation last week of Infantino's senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro, who described the FFE plan as a "bad deal for football".

Jordanian FA president accuses FIFA of 'blackmail'

Infantino's crisis deepened on Tuesday when FIFA were accused of "blackmailing" Jordan over World Cup money in return for their support for Infantino to stay on as president.

The support of national associations in Asia could prove critical to his survival, but the president of the Jordanian Football Association, Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, wrote on

X

that his organisation "certainly" would not endorse Infantino after alleging FIFA sought to secure his support by promising it would help with the recovery of money he said was owed to the JFA.

Prince Ali, who stood for the FIFA presidency in 2015 against Sepp Blatter and against Infantino the following year, hit out at the difficulties faced by Jordanian fans seeking to enter the United States for this summer's World Cup and the "exorbitant" price of tickets, and detailed the "huge costs" in taxes his association faced due to being based in the US rather than Canada or Mexico for the finals.

He then revealed Jordan was still awaiting prize money from last year's Arab Cup, which is organised by FIFA, "while at the same time FIFA brags about how many billions they have in reserve".

"It is clear the problem really is with leadership," Prince Ali added.

"For months, FIFA has been refusing to help us on any of these or other matters - until it was verbally communicated to me during the World Cup that if I endorsed Infantino it would go a long way to helping our FA out.

"We pride ourselves in Jordan in upholding ethical values. We did not endorse him before and certainly will not now. But the whole situation amounts to blackmail and we refuse to give in to that."

Asia is seen as the key continent in any presidential contest that may yet be forced, with Europe and nations from North America, Central America and the Caribbean expected to want Infantino out while Africa, South America and Oceania are expected to back him.

UEFA has also told Infantino it is "actively considering" legal action over the FFE plan and lawyers acting on behalf of the European body have ordered Infantino and other FIFA staff to identify, locate and preserve any documents related to the project.

The plan to create FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), a company to run the commercial and operational aspects of FIFA's tournaments, first emerged in reports by

The Times

and

The Financial Times

last Tuesday, before FIFA issued confirmation of some of the details. The most controversial aspect of the plan was the idea to sell 20 per cent of FFE to private investors.

The plan was firmly rejected by European football's governing body UEFA, as well as CONCACAF - the confederation representing nations from North and Central America plus the Caribbean - and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). UEFA also threatened to boycott FIFA competitions including the World Cup until the plan was scrapped, which it duly was last Saturday.

UEFA said it had nevertheless "lost confidence" in Infantino and a number of its associations - including those of England and Wales - have since formally withdrawn their support for Infantino, with the Scottish Football Association understood to be aligned to UEFA's position.

Blatter wants first female FIFA president to replace Infantino

Former FIFA president Blatter says it is time for a woman to be FIFA president and he has backed Klaveness to replace Gianni Infantino.

Writing on his

account, Blatter says: "Lise Klaveness deserves the utmost respect. She was the only one who always took a clear stand and did not go along with the mainstream. And at FIFA, the time is right for a woman to take the lead".

Klaveness has been the president of the Norway Football Federation (NFF) for the past four years, and before that she was a lawyer and an international footballer.

Under her leadership, the NFF have taken a principled stand on a wide range of issues, even though it has meant being isolated and outnumbered by the vast majority of FAs who have meekly gone along with Infantino's schemes and plans.

She spoke out - in Qatar - about the World Cup being hosted in Qatar in 2022, and she has also criticised Saudi Arabia being awarded the 2034 World Cup in unusual circumstances.

The NFF were among only a handful of FIFA's 211 member associations that did not send letters earlier this year supporting Infantino's re-election bid in March 2027.

Blatter was FIFA president from 1998 to 2015 when he resigned in a corruption scandal.

He was cleared of personal corruption charges by a tribunal in Switzerland last August.

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