Gianni Infantino apologises for World Cup sell-off plan, but told he’s ‘not fit to lead’
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Gianni Infantino has apologised to the Fifa Council for his World Cup sell-off plan but has been told he’s still “not fit to be Fifa president” after failing to answer questions from his critics.
The FA chair Debbie Hewitt, who sits on the Fifa Council, told reporters in Zurich that Uefa’s position in opposing Infantino has not changed after he attempted to sell stakes in the World Cup and Fifa tournaments to private investors this summer.
Hewitt also said that Infantino did not answer the Council’s questions relating to other recent controversies, including his involvement in overturning Folarin Balogun’s suspension at the World Cup after a call from Donald Trump and the Fifa Peace Prize.
Hewitt said Infantino has requested members to submit their questions in writing, despite a three-and-a-half hour meeting of the Fifa Council in what was their first official gathering since details of the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan emerged in July.
“The man has to answer those questions, and if he doesn’t answer those questions, no, he’s not fit to be Fifa president, and that was what was shared in the meeting,” Hewitt told reporters in Zurich.
“He’s told us to submit those questions. There were so many of them, and now it’s up to him to do that, and do that in the open way. The minimum is having the papers from FFE [the Fifa Forward Enterprise plan], because if there’s nothing to hide, then share them with us.”
Infantino outlined his plans for form within Fifa last month and is planning to stand for re-election in March after coming under pressure to resign following the collapse of his World Cup sell-off plan.
A lengthy statement from Fifa after the meeting confirmed that Infantino had apologised “for the mistakes made in relation to the withdrawn FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal” and called for unity, while reiterating that “football is for everyone, everywhere”.
Uefa led calls for Infantino to step down with further opposition coming from the Asian confederation and Concacaf, which represents countries in North and Central America plus the Caribbean.
FA chair Hewitt also wrote to Infantino last month calling for an independent review into the World Cup private investor plan and the handling of the Balogun case.
The decision to pause Balogun’s suspension came before US president Donald Trump admitted he personally contacted Infantino to request that the red card given to the forward against Bosnia and Herzegovina be re-examined.
Hewitt said Infantino apologised to the Fifa Council for not sharing the FFE plan with them before details of it were reported by The Times in the week following the World Cup final and that she believed he “regrets that deeply”.
But she added that she received “no new information” to change her position after the FA withdrew their support for Infantino following the loss of confidence in his leadership.
“We spoke a lot about the issues and it’s fair to say Gianni apologised for what happened,” Hewitt said. “He said that with some contrition and there were no holds barred on what we felt about what happened.
“We were asked to submit our questions and one of the disappointing things is we did not get the answers to those questions. We didn’t get answers to anything we had specifically requested, for example getting the papers from FFE.
“I asked the question ‘why and why not?’ and we were asked to submit those questions and then we will get answers. To be fair, there were so many questions. Certainly I’ve left the room feeling there’s nothing I wished I had said and didn’t say.
“I have no new information that makes me feel any differently about how I felt when I went in, other than we do have a president of Fifa who is apologetic about what has happened, and secondly, a promise again that we will get the information that we’ve requested.”
