FIFA president Gianni Infantino says he is committed to a new era of openness at football's governing body, insisting the move is "not about generating positive headlines" but about doing right by the game. The comments come two months into a bitter dispute triggered by his now-abandoned plan to sell off $4.2 billion worth of World Cup commercial rights.
In an Instagram post from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he is attending the Arabian Gulf Cup, Infantino said he has offered critics an independent review of how FIFA is run and makes decisions. "I have received positive messages about it from different parts of the world, and it is important that we keep listening to each other," he wrote.
Council Meeting and Wider Consultation
Infantino will chair an October 15 meeting of the 37-member FIFA Council, which will be asked to approve wider consultation with FIFA's 211 member federations and six continental bodies on "how to further strengthen FIFA's decision-making processes." Those 211 members already effectively own FIFA, a Switzerland-based not-for-profit organisation that reportedly holds at least $5 billion in cash reserves following a financially successful men's World Cup in North America.
The council includes three vice presidents who led opposition to Infantino during the row: European soccer chief Aleksander Ceferin, North America's Victor Montagliani, and Asia's Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa. Their pushback centred on Infantino's proposal to create a commercial spinoff partly owned by investors fronted by Josh Kushner. "There must be a culture of dialogue, of listening to each other and respecting one another," Infantino wrote of the upcoming meeting.
A Pattern of Unilateral Moves
Infantino's presidency, which began in 2016, has repeatedly run into turbulence over multi-billion dollar commercial plans pushed without full consultation of continental bodies such as UEFA, which has previously succeeded in blocking similar proposals.
The sell-off plan itself, which would have offloaded at least 20 percent of FIFA's commercial rights in a deal anchored by Kushner, brother-in-law of Donald Trump's son-in-law, triggered what has been described as FIFA's biggest crisis since the 2015 corruption arrests that led to trials in New York. As part of the proposal, FIFA's 211 national federations were each offered $20 million to approve a new subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise. UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation countered that FIFA could instead afford to give every federation a $10 million dividend straight from its existing reserves.
Election Looming
Infantino now faces a challenge for his position ahead of a March 18 FIFA presidential vote in Morocco, with a candidate deadline set for November 18. Against that backdrop, he has stressed his readiness to engage with soccer's stakeholders. "I have never been more determined and committed in doing that," he wrote on Instagram. "FIFA is always engaged. I am always engaged and I want to hear how we can continue to grow football for the benefit of everybody, everywhere."
