"He has lied, deceived and tried to feather his own nest at the expense of the game he is supposed to serve." Luis Figo doesn't do diplomatic. In a scathing op-ed published in the Daily Mail, the former Ballon d'Or winner called on Gianni Infantino to resign as FIFA president — immediately, without ceremony, and without waiting for the March re-election.
The trigger is a now-collapsed proposal to bring private investment into the World Cup's financial structure — a plan that Infantino conceived in secret, without informing FIFA's own membership, and which reportedly included a $30 million-a-year role for Infantino himself once his final presidential term expires in 2031. FIFA's chief operating officer Kevin Lamour described it plainly: "the project of one person."
The walls closing in
This isn't just Figo sounding off. The list of people walking away or speaking out against Infantino is growing fast. Former U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro, who served as a senior adviser to Infantino, quit last week. "I had no involvement in this proposal, and I oppose it unequivocally," he said. UEFA and Concacaf have issued statements expressing a loss of confidence in his leadership. The people who were supposed to be closest to him are the ones burning the bridge first.
Figo's questions cut to the core of why this whole episode stinks. "If it was such a good idea, why not tell your members when you had them all in a room before the World Cup final?" he wrote. "If the scheme was a no-brainer, why not be honest about the fact that it was going to give you a $30m-a-year job at the end of it?"
There's no clean answer to any of that.
What happens next
Infantino is up for re-election in March and, despite the noise, shows no signs of stepping down voluntarily. Whether the confederation pressure translates into actual votes against him is a different question entirely — FIFA's political machinery has survived worse-looking situations than this one.
But the reputational damage is real, and it compounds. Every senior figure who distances themselves from the proposal makes it harder for Infantino to frame this as a misunderstanding or a media storm. Figo, who spent 20 years at the top of the game with Sporting CP, Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Inter, carries the kind of credibility that doesn't get brushed aside with a press statement.
"It is too late to save his dignity," Figo concluded, "but it is not too late to save football."
That's not the language of someone leaving a door open.
