Overview
- On Wednesday Infantino convened senior FIFA officials in Morocco to try to contain the fallout after he withdrew the secret FIFA Forward Enterprise plan to sell stakes in World Cup commercial rights.
- The shelved FFE proposal would have created a new commercial vehicle to manage tournament rights and aimed to sell about 20% to private investors to raise roughly $4.2 billion, with reports linking one investor to a firm tied by family to US President Donald Trump.
- UEFA said it has lost confidence in Infantino and is studying legal action while CONCACAF and the AFC joined critics, and several national associations including England, Wales, Serbia and Finland have publicly withdrawn support for his re-election bid.
- Senior FIFA figures have publicly distanced themselves or quit in protest, with secretary-general Mattias Grafström issuing a leaked memo calling the episode 'sad and reproachable,' Arsène Wenger saying he was not involved, and adviser Carlos Cordeiro resigning.
- Infantino still has backing from pockets of Africa and parts of Asia, but the episode raises the prospect of an extraordinary congress, document-preservation and legal steps, and leaves the March 2027 vote uncertain.