Fifa hit out at “unsubstantiated assertions and demonstrably false claims”, adding that “speculation and insinuation should not be presented as fact”.
Infantino has come under increasing pressure from Uefa and European football associations over his aborted Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal.
FFE would have meant a new company being created to manage commercial and ticketing rights, with 21% sold off to a private investment company.
Uefa has said it has lost confidence in Infantino, while Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) president Lise Klaveness on Friday called on the Swiss-Italian to resign.
European football’s governing body says its threat to boycott Fifa events remains on the table, adding that certain conditions have not been met.
“The Fifa President was democratically elected by Fifa’s Member Associations and continues to serve with their mandate,” Fifa said in its statement on Saturday.
“It is increasingly evident that there is a concerted and ongoing effort by some to undermine Fifa and its president.
“Those who do not have the support of Fifa’s member associations should not seek to achieve through allegation, insinuation or misinformation what they cannot achieve through Fifa’s established democratic processes.”
Opposition to Infantino is largely from within Europe.
The Mexican Football Federation broke ranks with its regional governing body Concacaf to come out in support of Infantino.
It echoed a statement from Conmebol – South America’s governing body – in saying it would reject any attempt to remove Infantino without a vote involving all 211 Fifa member countries.
Infantino is also unanimously backed by the 54 nations of the Confederation of African Football (Caf).
Gianni Infantino’s alleged lover was given a severance payment over the affair by Uefa while he was its general secretary, according to a Daily Telegraph investigation, external.
A spokesman for the now Fifa president was reported to have told the paper Infantino “strongly denies these categorically untrue allegations”.
Uefa, for whom Infantino was general secretary from 2009 to 2016, issued a statement confirming “a departure payment was made to the individual in question”.
The allegations come as Infantino fights for his future as Fifa president following his aborted plans to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors.
BBC Sport has contacted Fifa and Infantino for comment.
The Telegraph reported that Uefa paid a six-figure sum to the woman, who had an alleged relationship with Infantino, who is married, during his time at European football’s governing body.
“Fifa president Gianni Infantino strongly denies these allegations, and they are categorically untrue. Any insinuation of inappropriate conduct or violation of statutes or regulations is defamatory,” a Fifa spokesman told the Telegraph.
“No employee at Uefa and Fifa has ever raised a complaint regarding Mr Infantino’s behaviour because there never was an incident where he was involved.”
Uefa confirmed a payment was made to the woman in question and that it covered the fees for her to complete an MBA course at a local business school.
It said all payments were in line with regulations at the time, but those regulations have since been tightened and “reflect those found in a modern, high-profile organisation”.
A cavalcade of blacked out Mercedes, flanked by police cars, rolled into the Fifa headquarters in Rabat, Morocco, earlier this week.
Infantino had summoned a select few members of the Fifa management board to discuss his plan to sell off 21% of the commercial and ticketing business to a private equity firm.
This is how the Swiss-Italian travels – in between flights on the Qatar Airways Executive jet which has been made available to him. The plane enabled him to take up to three flights a day, watching two games, throughout the 2026 World Cup.
That type of arrival does look presidential – only more like a president of a country than a sports body.
It enables him to travel the globe, visiting Fifa’s official offices like Rabat, where he was based over the past week as the Fifa Forward Enterprise controversy developed.
In his role Infantino is expected to visit the 211 member nations, to see the grassroots projects Fifa has funded.
Part of his remit is to unify football, which cannot be achieved from within the Fifa headquarters in Zurich.
It requires international travel to attend confederation meetings, and the global tournaments Fifa organises. Infantino needs to build relationships with officials and politicians.
In April, before the Fifa Congress in Vancouver, local authorities rejected a request for a level-four motorcade, usually reserved for heads of state or the Pope.
New Zealand police said they had declined a similar request during the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Alongside the cavalcade of cars and the private charter flights comes a large salary, too, three times what he first earned when elected in 2016.
Infantino, who was paid about £1.3m 10 years ago, now takes home about £4m – a base salary of £2.2m plus a confirmed variable bonus payment of £1.8m.
His predecessor Sepp Blatter was paid a £2.6m package for his final year as Fifa president.
Infantino gets a ‘per diem’ too to cover expenses and living costs, worth £20,500 a year on top of his salary.
As the head of the most popular sport in the world, it should be expected that there is a wage to match.
Infantino would argue that by driving record revenues and funding for member associations, he has proven he is worth the salary.
Uefa is in something of a pickle as it tries to get rid of Infantino.
The easiest route to success was the slow turning of the vice throughout this week, hoping to exert enough pressure to force him to quit.
Yet the Swiss appears to have no intention of walking away.
European football looks like an outlier, struggling to gain enough support to topple him.
On Thursday, Lamin Kaba Bajo, the president of the Gambia Football Federation, praised Infantino’s “courage” and for the U-turn, and said he was “willing to give him my support more than ever”.
Only Jordan, one of the few countries which did not back Infantino before last week, has publicly stated it will not vote for his re-election in March.
Concacaf is the only other confederation to issue a public statement after the proposal was aborted but, unlike Uefa, it did not go as far as to say it had lost confidence in the Fifa president.
Conmebol, the South American confederation, said on Thursday it would not support “any action or procedure that disregards” Fifa’s mechanisms before the presidential election.
Ideally, Uefa would force an emergency meeting of the Fifa Council, to provide what it would consider to be a true chance to hold Infantino to account.
But getting the necessary 19 of 36 confederation and football association heads to support it has proven to be exceptionally difficult.
Uefa has also kept on the table the option of a vote of no confidence, which it can trigger via an extraordinary congress any time it wishes.
However, it would need a majority of Fifa’s 211 member associations – 106 votes – to pass the motion. It would be a de facto presidential election without a second candidate.
If Uefa does not think it can get to 106, which looks a stretch, then there is little point in triggering the vote.
The other option is to try to find a unity candidate to stand against Infantino in the election next March. The favourite would be Concacaf president Victor Montagliani.
Any option which takes time gives Infantino space to build bridges, and with Fifa due to announce new funding to member associations by the end of the year he could dangle another carrot for his re-election.
Unless Uefa sticks by the nuclear option – and goes through with its threat of a boycott.
This has issues, and it is not a lever you can pull very often, otherwise it gives the impression of riding roughshod over the rest of the world.
It is one thing use it to jettison the FFE proposal, another entirely to effectively dethrone the president with it.
Uefa’s stance will soon be tested, with the Fifa Women’s U20s World Cup kicking off in Poland on 5 September. Six European countries are due to take part, including England.
When Gianni Infantino was chosen to replace Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA, he was seen as a reformer, someone who would bring transparency and openness to soccer’s international governing body, which had long been mired in scandal and deceit.
A decade later the reformer has been exposed, hoisted by his own petard after a secret partnership with a member of President Trump’s family circle to sell 20% of the World Cup to private investors was exposed. It was a deal so brazen it made past FIFA transgressions seem quaint by comparison.
Less than two weeks after Infantino closed one of the most successful World Cups in history, one that brought in a record $15 billion in revenue, The Times of London revealed that Infantino had begun bribing FIFA’s 211-member associations, giving them until Sept. 19 to accept his plan to sell a stake in the commercial and tournament rights to the World Cup and other FIFA tournaments to a private equity firm headed by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and an inveterate White House counselor.
Sign on, the federations were told, and you’ll get $20 million. Decline, and FIFA will give you just a fraction of that.
Under pressure, Infantino announced Friday he was withdrawing the plan, known as the FIFA Forward Enterprise. But it turns out there was more to the proposal than originally thought.
Much, much more.
Which is why Infantino’s campaign for reelection to a fourth term as FIFA president next March, a campaign which had the support of more than 200 FIFA members two weeks ago, now appears doomed.
The national federations of Serbia, Sweden and Wales on Monday withdrew their support for Infantino and England’s FA is expected to do the same. UEFA, the governing body for European soccer and the largest and most powerful of FIFA’s six continental confederations, is threatening legal action while two other confederations — CONCACAF, the largest of FIFA’s two confederations in the Americans and the AFC, which manages soccer in Asia — have issued condemnations.
Those three confederations together represent nearly 140 FIFA members, meaning if they hold together there is no path for Infantino to get the 106 votes he would need to win reelection.
So how did we get here? How did Infantino go from progressive reformer, the overseer of newly transparent and accountable FIFA, to the man who literally tried to sell the World Cup? The journey may not have been as long as it seemed because Infantino may never have been the Boy Scout he was initially perceived to be.
Days after his first election as president in 2016, his name surfaced in leaked documents indicating that, while a senior legal official at UEFA, he had co-signed a broadcast deal with a company subsequently linked to a U.S. investigation into FIFA corruption. Later that same year, a FIFA committee opened an investigation into whether Infantino breached the organization’s Code of Ethics.
Infantino was eventually cleared by that probe but another pattern soon emerged, one that saw the president morph from a soccer bureaucrat into someone who believes he should be mixing with presidents and kings.
Infantino inherited World Cups that had already been awarded to Russia and Qatar, but he aggressively downplayed the human rights abuses in the two countries. Russian President Putin rewarded that by presenting the FIFA chief with the Order of Friendship medal. Qatar did better than that, giving Infantino use of a luxury Gulfstream G650 jet from its government fleet.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino, far left, takes a selfie with (from left) President Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during the World Cup draw in Washington on Dec. 5.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
If Infantino, born to blue-collar Italian parents in Switzerland, had previously been driven by a desire for power and money, one former close associate told The Times of London that the FIFA president “views himself as one of the oligarchs now.”
And no government gave Infantino more access to the corridors of power than the Trump administration. Infantino rented office space in Trump Tower, attended Trump’s second inauguration, mingled with him and his guests at Mar-a-lago, accompanied him on diplomatic missions to the Middle East and was a frequent visitor to the White House.
Last October, Infantino took to Instagram to say that Trump “definitely deserves” the Nobel Peace Prize. When he didn’t get it, Infantino simply created his own award, presenting Trump with first FIFA Peace Prize last December.
But the access to the top levels of the U.S. government may have created Infantino’s Icarus moment. The beginning of Infantino’s fall may have started last year at the White House when he and Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo attended a black-tie dinner to honor Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Five days earlier Ronaldo had been given a red card and a three-game suspension for a serious foul, a penalty that would have forced him to miss the start of the World Cup. After the White House event, FIFA announced Ronaldo’s suspension had been lifted, allowing one of the World Cup’s star attractions to play in the tournament.
That was an incident Trump remembered last month when he personally — and successfully — petitioned Infantino to lift a red-card suspension for U.S. striker Folarin Balogun the day before a World Cup round-of-16 game with Belgium. It was just the second time in history a suspension was overturned during a World Cup.
Infantino also pushed through a number of other World Cup firsts for this summer’s tournament. He added three-minute hydration breaks each half, upsetting more than a century and a half of soccer tradition while giving six more minutes of advertising space to broadcasters; he introduced a halftime show for the final, nearly doubling the intermission break for the tournament’s most important game; and he pioneered a dynamic pricing scheme that more than doubled the cost of tickets from 2022.
Those moves were designed to boost FIFA revenues, and they did — as did Infantino’s push to expand the 2026 World Cup to 48 teams and 104 games. But his luck ran out with his plan to give outside investors a share of the tournament, a scheme known to the White House — Jared Kushner was originally involved, according to reports — but few others.
One damning part of the plan involved a potential future role for Infantino in the investment fund. As FIFA’s president, Infantino earns an annual salary of $6 million, but if reelected, he can serve just one more term, meaning he’d be out of a job in 2031. However, multiple reports, citing unnamed sources, said Infantino was positioned to be chief executive of the investment arm in his post-FIFA days, a job that pays $30 million a year.
FIFA said that idea was never discussed. It also denied reports that Infantino had been rebuffed Monday in efforts to contact Trump for help in saving his presidency. But should he be pushed aside and should his days as a private equity manager never come to pass, there is another job Trump thinks he could do.
The president is reportedly considering pushing Infantino to become the next United Nations secretary-general when António Guterres’ term expires in December.
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Wales have become the first nation to publicly withdraw backing for Gianni Infantino’s bid to continue his leadership of Fifa.
It follows the loss of confidence in the Fifa president following his scrapped plans to sell stakes in its competitions to private investment firms.
The Football Association of Wales (FAW) has confirmed “its withdrawal of support for the candidature of Mr Gianni Infantino for re-election as Fifa president for the 2027-2031 term”.
Infantino’s lucrative plan sparked a global outcry, with European football’s governing body Uefa threatening to boycott all Fifa competitions, including the World Cup.
Uefa and Concacaf – which oversees football in North, Central America and the Caribbean – both released statements on Saturday criticising the leadership of the world governing body following Infantino’s decision to withdraw the plan.
The FAW added: “The recent failures in good governance, processes, leadership, values, stakeholder management, communications and sound judgement have led us to a position where Mr Infantino has lost the confidence of the FAW to remain at the helm of world football.
“Failing to put the best interests of football first is a failure we cannot accept.”
The quickest route for Infantino’s exit would be for the Swiss to resign, like his predecessor Sepp Blatter did in 2015.
But Infantino still retains support and he could try to hold out until March, when he is up for re-election for a fourth and final term as president.
What other avenues are open?
The Fifa Council could try to force Infantino’s hand through an emergency meeting.
Such a gathering would be triggered if 19 of the 37 Fifa Council members call for one.
Uefa has nine members, AFC has seven, Concacaf five, Africa has six, Conmebol five and Oceania three. It is completed by Infantino and secretary general Mattias Grafstrom.
BBC Sport understands there are some doubts that the 19 votes could be achieved.
If they do get to 19, the meeting must take place within two weeks and the Fifa Council could call on Infantino to tender his resignation. But he could simply refuse to do so.
It would, however, add further pressure.
The next step would be an extraordinary congress of the 211 Fifa member associations, which would be held if one-fifth, or 43 associations, “make such a request in writing”.
So Uefa, which has 55 nations, can trigger the extraordinary congress whenever it so wishes.
That would take a minimum of two months from the point it is triggered, but more likely three months, and there is no guarantee of success.
In effect, it would be a de facto election without there being another candidate as 106 votes would be needed to pass the vote of no confidence.
Uefa has 55, Africa 54, Asia 46, Concacaf 35, Oceania 11 and Conmebol 10.
Africa, Conmebol and Oceania have not criticised Infantino’s plan.
So could Uefa get to 106? In total, 136 countries officially rejected the investment plan, but voting to reject an idea is not the same as voting to kick Infantino out.
Of the 136, Qatar have already publicly backed him and Mexico have distanced themselves from the joint Concacaf statement.
Which leaves finding a suitable candidate to fight the election in March.
Infantino stood unopposed when he was re-elected in 2019 and 2023 and if someone wants to battle him for the position, the deadline to announce their candidacy is 18 November.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino says he has scrapped the controversial plan to sell off stakes in the governing body’s major competitions, following widespread opposition.
Infantino said it had become clear the project had “created divisions” that are “no longer in the interest” of its original objective.
The Swiss added: “As a result, this proposal will not proceed.”
Infantino had offered all 211 member associations $40m (£30m) if they backed a proposal for private investment in its tournaments, including the men’s and women’s World Cups.
Carlos Cordeiro – Infantino’s senior adviser on global strategy and governance – resigned over the mater, saying the proposal was “a bad deal for football” and would “mortgage football’s future”.
That came after two other major confederations spoke out against the plans.
Concacaf, which governs football in North, Central America and the Caribbean – and hosted this summer’s World Cup – said its members “rejected” the proposal, with sources saying the vast majority of associations from the region are losing, or have lost, faith in Infantino.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said it stood in “solidarity” with Uefa and Concacaf, while UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Infantino was “the wrong man” to lead Fifa.
Infantino, 56, is now under immense pressure as he seeks re-election for a fourth term as president at the Fifa Congress in March.
He said he now intends to “bring all interested parties back together” in the “spirit of shared interest” in football.
While Uefa members are among the richest on the planet, many other nations rely on Fifa funding for basic infrastructure.
While the AFC opposes Infantino’s plan, unlike Uefa it has not threatened to boycott Fifa competitions. AFC members would not be obliged to vote against the proposals.
Rogers Byamukama, of the Ugandan Football Federation, argued any avenue that could lead to more resources for nations like his should be explored.
“First and foremost, you need to understand that football is a very expensive venture, especially on the African continent where the resources are not easy to come by,” he told Newsday on BBC World Service.
“For instance in Uganda, the number of infrastructure projects that have been funded by Fifa from the resources generated by Fifa, especially at the World Cup, both from ticket sales as well as sponsors.
“On top of that, there are many grassroots programmes that have been funded by Fifa, including schools for football.
“From my perspective, any avenue that brings in more resources is good because those resources would be distributed and given to federations, especially on the African continent and that would inspire growth.”
Byamukama acknowledged Uefa’s right to speak out, but suggested its members were not reliant on Fifa funding like many associations in the rest of the world where Infantino remains popular.
In the first two cycles of the Fifa Forward development programme, through to 2022, $2.8bn (£2.08bn) was made available for investment across the 211 member associations.
Fifa Forward 3.0 – covering the years 2023 through to 2026 – has produced a 30% increase in funding.
Fifa has provided a further $5m (£3.7m) for every member association, with another $60m (£44.48m) paid to each confederation for their own projects.
After expanding the men’s World Cup to 48 teams from 32 for the 2026 edition, Fifa is seeking an independent agency to assess an expansion to 64 teams for the 2030 tournament.
The timeline on documents seen by BBC Sport said Fifa would receive agency proposals by 7 August, with a Fifa decision on 14 August. Delivery of analysis by the agency is then scheduled for 11 September.
Like Infantino, he was elected in 2016 promising governance reform. A former president of Canada Soccer, as co-chair, Montagliani was heavily involved in the build up to, and delivery of the 2026 World Cup, the first to be hosted by three nations. He is fluent in French, Italian and Spanish, as well as English.
Explaining his decision to run for the Concacaf presidency, Montagliani told the BC Business website: “Like anything, when I decide to go, I go. I campaigned on my own dime for three months, went to see all 41 countries, from the US to Bonaire, a little island off Venezuela.”
Montagliani took the lead when Concacaf hosted an expanded Copa America in 2024 – in an interview with BBC Sport he rejected the idea it could become a regular occurrence. Politically strong, he smoothed relations around Arsene Wenger’s attempt to gain support for a World Cup every two years and has never truly bought into the idea of a 64-team World Cup.
At the Leaders conference in 2025, he outlined why he felt football was strong enough to ride out any storm.
“The game is bigger than world current leaders,” he said. “Football will survive regimes. Does it cause a headache? Of course. You have to be realistic about that. That is the beauty of our game, it is bigger than any individual and country.”
Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa (AFC president)
Initially elected in 2013, he was elected unopposed for a fourth term to run to 2027.
The Bahraini has presided over significant growth within the Asian confederation, through the Champions League Elite, Champions League Two, the Challenge League and the Women’s Champions League, which was launched in 2024-25. The Asian Cup has been expanded to 24 teams.
Sheikh Salman signed off the brutal takedown of how Fifa is being run by Infantino and has carried with him a 46-member confederation, many of whom are aware the figures being offered by Infantino’s plan are huge in terms of their overall football expenditure.
Uefa’s 55 member associations have voted to boycott the World Cup if Fifa proceeds with its plan to sell stakes in its competitions to private investors.
The decision was made at an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the proposals announced by Fifa – world football’s governing body – on Tuesday.
Uefa, which governs European football, had made its opposition clear by releasing two damning statements about the plans – and that strength of feeling has now been reaffirmed.
The boycott would cover all Fifa competitions, including the men’s and women’s World Cups and Club World Cup and be triggered if Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s proposals are voted through by member associations.
The first time this stance will be tested is October, when the Women’s World Cup play-offs are due to be held.
Infantino also addressed criticism surrounding the standard of officiating at the tournament, in particular concerns about political interference after USA forward Folarin Balogun was made available for their last-16 tie when his one-match ban was suspended by Fifa – following the intervention of US President Donald Trump.
Of the 191 other red cards shown at a men’s World Cup, only one other player has escaped a suspension.
Infantino, however, argued that such decisions are not out of the ordinary, claiming similar rulings are “routine and widely accepted in some of the biggest leagues worldwide”.
He added: “It’s curious that the same countries employing these practices are the ones criticising.”
The International Olympic Committee has said it will not investigate Infantino for any possible breaches of political neutrality, stating the complaint levelled by human rights campaign group FairSquare falls outside the jurisdiction of its ethics commission.
Infantino’s advice to his opponents was “to show some love” and “respect” to a tournament where “people came together as families, as fans, as one”.
“To everyone who missed our beautiful game, the emotions, the celebrations, the laughter, the crying, the deception and the joy. To all of you who missed watching kids, babies, grandparents and parents come together for the beautiful game… sorry that you were so consumed by hate and criticism that you missed it all,” Infantino wrote.
“While they celebrated, you were busy planting seeds of hate. Our world needs love, not hate; tolerance, not division; celebration, not mourning.
“To those spending their time and energy hating us, please take a moment to reflect, meditate, pray or watch a football match and truly observe the faces, the eyes, the emotions.
“Because only our beautiful game can deliver such an extraordinary show, a show where everyone becomes one and reconnects as humans.
“I am incredibly proud, as Fifa President, to have contributed, even a little, to this show. It’s a great feeling.”
Fifa faced criticism before the tournament, with suggestions the additional teams would not be competitive.
Then Cape Verde drew with Spain and Uruguay to finish second in their group. And the Blue Sharks gave Argentina an almighty scare by taking them to extra time in the last 16, before losing 3-2.
But the fairytale stories must be balanced with the competitive edge of the tournament.
Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Panama, Tunisia and Uzbekistan failed to pick up a point – and this summer’s group stage had minimal jeopardy for the top nations.
Add more teams and it would be difficult to see a repeat of top-four seeds like Belgium (2022), Germany (2018), Spain (2014), Italy (2010) and France (2002) failing to make to knockout stage.
Then there is the question of where the extra places would go.
Based on this year’s qualifying, these are the additional countries who would have made it into a 64-team World Cup 2026 (with their Fifa ranking at the start of the tournament in brackets):
AFC: Indonesia (118), Oman (79), United Arab Emirates (68).
Nine of Africa’s 10 countries got out of the group stage. But only two of nine Asian countries advanced, and just three of the six Concacaf countries – the co-hosts – made it through.
New Zealand, who got one point and finished bottom of their group, are the only country from Oceania in the world’s top 150.
There is an argument that if you extend again, you should give a greater weight of places to Europe just for competitive balance.
But, on the other hand, there are those who would argue that bringing more teams into the World Cup ultimately allows the game to develop further in those countries.
Infantino will sell the expansion as being good for the global game, but there have to be doubts that it is good for the competition.
Almost a third of Fifa’s 211 nations would be present.
Would the group stage not simply become a glorified pan-confederation qualifying competition for what is, essentially, a knockout tournament?
Managers and coaching staff are allowed to discuss tactics with their players while the breaks are taking place.
Infantino said: “The main reason [for the breaks] is the heat, but we also have to understand that in a competition like the World Cup, played over 39 days, with teams potentially playing eight matches in those 39 days, having a moment to rest is extremely important.
“What matters even more to us is ensuring that all teams, in every match, are playing under the same conditions.
“And it’s very difficult to accept that a coach might have the opportunity to influence a match by making adjustments simply because it is hotter, while in another match, where the temperature is slightly lower, the same coach does not have the same opportunity.
“We want to ensure equal conditions for everyone and that’s why these breaks are implemented in every match.”
Experts have told BBC Sport an average 30-second World Cup advertising slot on Fox Sports costs between $200,000 (£152,000) and $300,000 (£227,000), rising to $750,000 (£567,000) during USA matches and the final stages.
That means advertising during hydration breaks is likely to generate more than $250m (£189m) in the USA alone.
BBC sports editor Dan Roan quizzes Fifa president Gianni Infantino on the eve of the World Cup, after he told journalists to “chill” and “relax” over visa and ticketing issues.
