Gianni Infantino's campaign for re-election as FIFA president is set to move this week to Japan, with a meeting scheduled for Wednesday with the Asian Football Confederation in Tokyo.
The Tokyo meeting comes after Infantino apologized last week in Zurich to FIFA's 37-member ruling council, which he chairs, for "mistakes" he made in assembling a now-scrapped $4.2 billion sell-off plan for the World Cup. The council is FIFA's main decision-making body, with a global spread of officials.
The AFC meeting is to be held in a five-star hotel in Tokyo with the media largely excluded. AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa had expressed early opposition to Infantino and his plan to create a subsidiary to run the World Cup, but may have moved closer to Infantino, according to a report by The Athletic. Infantino has offered critics an open, independent review of how FIFA makes its decisions.
UEFA general secretary Theodore Theodoridis sent FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafstrom a letter demanding answers and documents by November 2 on several Infantino-era controversies, including the World Cup commercial rights sell-off plan, the Folarin Balogun disciplinary case, an undisclosed 2024 payment to Infantino, and the independence of the FIFA presidential election committee chair.
An Associated Press tally indicates Infantino is close to landing the simple majority of the 211 FIFA member federations he needs to win re-election in March to a fourth term, with some of the deciding votes potentially coming from Asia. The AFC had joined the criticism of Infantino following the proposed World Cup sell-off, but its members appear far from united: Qatar, the 2022 World Cup host, has expressed support for Infantino, while Jordan has declared its opposition. The FIFA Council is scheduled to meet next on December 16 in Doha, Qatar.
The Associated Press count shows 87 of the 211 FIFA member federations have indicated support for Infantino, either through individual comments or by endorsing statements of support from their regional confederations. The largest block of opposition comes from Europe.
The Path to a Fourth Term
No sitting FIFA president has lost an election since 1974. The deadline for a candidate to file against Infantino is November 18. FIFA rules state that candidates must have "played an active role in association football (e.g. as a player or an official within FIFA, a confederation or an association, etc.) for two of the last five years before being proposed," and they must have "declarations of support" from at least five of the 211 members.
"FIFA is a massive patronage network," Jules Boykoff, a political scientist at Pacific University and a former professional soccer player, told The Associated Press. "It brings in billions from the men's World Cup and distributes it to football associations around the world in exchange for loyalty."
"The funds that FIFA distributes to soccer bodies around the world are meant to develop soccer, but there's scant oversight," Boykoff added. "To say FIFA is in need of structural overhaul is to make an enormous understatement."
