Just weeks after his opponents believed they could force him out, Gianni Infantino appears set to remain FIFA president. But according to senior figures in world football, the crisis triggered by his abandoned private-investment plan is now shifting into a different kind of fight: one over how much power he gets to keep.
"What is clear now ... is that he's going nowhere," a senior world football executive told Reuters. "A hot-cold war is a very real problem for FIFA and for world football."
A veteran international sports executive who has spent decades working with governing bodies offered a similar read, describing Infantino as "hanging on" while questioning how FIFA can function with many of the game's most powerful countries and institutions still opposed to him. "You would have effectively a civil war within the governance which I cannot recall in a sports body before," the executive said. "Unprecedented."
That scenario of a drawn-out, damaging cold war inside world football was independently corroborated to Reuters by two other senior football officials. It points to a paradoxical outcome: Infantino could survive politically while some of the sport's biggest stakeholders try to limit what he can actually do. As the veteran executive put it, "Does he become a lame duck?"
Trust Still Broken
There's little sign that Infantino's attempt this week to draw a line under the crisis has repaired the damage. In a letter to the FIFA Council and the presidents of all 211 member associations, he proposed that the Council consider commissioning an independent external review of FIFA's governance framework for major strategic initiatives, along with consultations with confederations and other stakeholders on strengthening decision-making. He said he remains fully committed to leading FIFA.
Several European federations quickly dismissed the move. UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin was blunt in a video address to the Portugal Football Summit on Wednesday: "The project that shattered the unity of world football may be abolished, but the trust it broke has not returned." He added, "Trust in our sport rests on three pillars: unity, transparency, and governance that serves the many, not the few," and, "Football is not for sale."
Ceferin didn't name Infantino, but the reference was clearly to the dropped plan to sell a 20% stake in FIFA's commercial rights, including World Cup-linked rights, to private investors. That project collapsed in July after opposition from UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF.
Attrition or Compromise
For the 56-year-old Swiss-Italian, that leaves one route to a calmer settlement: reform substantial enough to convince opponents that power inside FIFA has genuinely shifted. The senior world football executive suggested one possible outcome could be a new body or structure that dilutes presidential authority, calling Infantino's current governance proposals the "bare minimum" needed to buy him room to stay in office. The real question, the executive said, is whether he'll accept meaningful change.
There's a historical irony here. Reforms brought in after Sepp Blatter's downfall were partly designed to reduce power concentrated in the presidency — yet senior figures now see another battle brewing over exactly that.
If no settlement is reached, the alternative is less dramatic but potentially just as corrosive. The world football executive outlined how clubs could fight FIFA over the Club World Cup, financial distributions and player release; player representatives could challenge the calendar; national associations could obstruct initiatives; and major confederations could contest attempts to expand or reshape FIFA competitions — touching everything from expanded World Cups to bigger Club World Cups and commercial distribution decisions.
"Maybe it seems like we're boiling down to two options now," the executive said. "One, a compromise where Gianni gives up some of his power and there are some new bodies that are created or, two, a permanent hot-cold war where all the stakeholders just fight every issue."
The veteran sports executive framed it as a test of how global governing bodies hold together at all: "The importance of unity. Keeping these monster sports organisations together, they are not political parties. This will be new territory."
Infantino Rebuilds Support
Part of why attention is shifting from removing Infantino to living with him is that his position seems to have strengthened since the crisis broke. A national association president, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, believes Infantino's opponents missed their best chance when the backlash was at its peak, and that he is now rebuilding support ahead of the March 2027 presidential election.
Infantino has a run of opportunities in the coming months to meet national association leaders at tournaments, congresses and confederation events, including several gatherings in Africa — chances the association president expects him to use to shore up backing through to the vote.
The political weight of smaller associations has also been underlined by a proposal from Ceferin and CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani for FIFA to distribute at least $10 million from its reserves to each of its 211 member associations during the next financial cycle — a sum that could be transformative for federations heavily reliant on FIFA funding.
If Infantino is reelected, the association president believes some of the federations currently opposing him could eventually soften, reasoning there's little to gain from four years of permanent confrontation. As that source put it, a cold war isn't inevitable.
