Gianni Infantino laughed when asked in Baku on Saturday whether he had considered resigning over the collapsed plan to sell off a slice of the World Cup, then answered with a number. “Well, you know, I was elected by 211 member associations from all over the world,” the Fifa president said, insisting he retains the support of the “vast, vast majority” of world football less than four weeks before the deadline for anyone to stand against him.
Speaking at the Under-15 World Cup in Azerbaijan, nine days after apologising to the Fifa Council in Zurich, Infantino made no concession to the European federations still calling for him to go. “There is nothing bad in disagreeing. We see it every day in so many countries in the world,” he said. “It’s OK to disagree. It’s OK to have different points of view, but then we need to be able to move on.”
What the sell-off actually proposed
The scheme at the centre of the crisis was Fifa Forward Enterprise, a vehicle that would have placed 20% of the commercial rights to all future Fifa tournaments — the men’s World Cup included — in the hands of private investors. The entity was valued at around $20bn, a figure critics noted was barely above the $15bn the 2026 World Cup generated on its own. Thrive Capital, the private equity firm led by Josh Kushner, was lined up as the investor.
Member associations were given until 19 September to sign up, with a £30.1m incentive attached, and Infantino paired the proposal with a pledge to lift development funding by $3.4bn (£2.6bn). The backlash was immediate and continental: Uefa, the Asian Football Confederation and Concacaf all signed a joint letter of objection. Infantino abandoned the plan within days.
His apology at the three-hour Council meeting in Zurich on 15 October was narrower than his critics wanted. He expressed regret for “mistakes in relation to the communication and consultation process” rather than for the substance of the plan itself — an important distinction to the 37-member Council, which was told about a multi-billion-dollar restructuring of its own assets only after the terms had been drawn up.
Uefa’s 42 questions and a 2 November deadline
Europe has not moved on. Uefa has sent Fifa a list of 42 questions with a deadline of 2 November, and the scope runs well past the sell-off. The governing body is asking about Infantino’s personal remuneration package, payments made to the singer Marc Anthony, the overturning of the red card shown to United States forward Folarin Balogun at the 2026 World Cup — including what Donald Trump said to Infantino in a phone call about it — the creation of a Fifa Peace Prize subsequently awarded to Trump, and the operational independence of Fifa’s judicial, electoral and ethics committees.
Uefa general secretary Theodore Theodoridis said Fifa’s “explanations have not begun satisfactorily to address a number of fundamental questions raised by Council members”. Football Association chair Debbie Hewitt was blunter: “The man has to answer those questions, and if he doesn’t answer those questions, no, he’s not fit to be Fifa president.”
Infantino’s response in Baku was procedural. “We’ll answer, of course, all the questions that are asked as far as the process allows,” he said of the demand for internal documents, adding that Fifa was “working on it” but that any release had to follow a legal process.
Why the arithmetic favours him
The gap between the volume of the criticism and Infantino’s position is explained by where the votes sit. Of Fifa’s 211 member associations, Uefa accounts for 55. A presidential election requires 106 votes, and the confederations that have moved in the past fortnight have moved towards the incumbent, not away from him.
- The AFC, one of the three bodies that signed the September objection letter, fully endorsed him in Tokyo — the U-turn Infantino pointedly referenced: “I’m just coming back off Tokyo where the Asian Football Confederation has fully endorsed me.”
- Caf’s member nations endorsed him at their gathering in Cape Verde.
- Conmebol has publicly backed him for a fourth term.
The election is set for 18 March 2027 in Rabat. Rival candidates must declare by 18 November, and none has emerged. On current form Infantino will be returned unopposed for a second consecutive cycle, as he was in 2023.
That is the paradox of the past three months. The sell-off was defeated — comprehensively, and by the same bloc of associations whose votes Infantino needs. But a plan can be killed without its author being weakened, and the man who was elected in February 2016 on a promise to clean up the wreckage of Sepp Blatter’s Fifa has emerged from his heaviest internal defeat with his path to 2031 clearer than it was in September. The 2 November deadline, not the ballot in Rabat, is now the only live test of how far the Council’s authority extends.
Sources: [Yahoo Sports](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/infantino-says-backed-vast-majority-103713897.html), [Yahoo Sports (re-election)](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/infantino-says-backed-vast-majority-123250168.html), [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/50219087/uefa-demands-fifa-explain-world-cup-sell-plan-balogun-red-reversal), [Sky Sports](https://www.skysports.com/football/news/13569748/gianni-infantino-fifa-president-apologises-for-world-cup-sell-off-plan-but-fa-and-other-european-leaders-still-want-him-to-resign), [GlobeTV](https://globetv.app/news/infantino-claims-vast-vast-majority-backing-ahead-of-fifa-presidential-election-6adca454483d1), [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/2026/10/24/infantino-fifa-president-elections-majority/f623fee0-cfa2-11f1-ac04-9f58578a68b4_story.html)
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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