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Infantino Apologizes for World Cup Plan at FIFA Meeting

Is FIFA's president an unfit leader or a reformer whose development record outweighs one dropped plan?

8 hours ago·Updated 47 minutes ago

Infantino Apologizes for World Cup Plan at FIFA Meeting

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Above: FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the FIFA U20 Women's World Cup Final in Lodz, Poland, on Sept. 27. Image credit: Martín Fonseca/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images

The Facts

Gianni Infantino apologized to the FIFA Council on Thursday for mistakes in the communication and consultation around the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise private investment project, saying in a video statement that it was a proposal and "in no way a done deal." The apology came as the FIFA council met in Zurich for the first time since the proposal came out.
Independent
Reuters
FIFA
English Football Association chair Debbie Hewitt, a FIFA vice president, said council members got no answers to specific requests during the talks, including documents on the project. She also said Infantino is "not fit to be FIFA president" if he does not respond, while describing the meeting as the "most robust, most frank" one she had attended. Infantino stated that he would respond in writing "in due course."
The Associated Press
BBC News
Daily Mail
The FIFA Forward Enterprise plan, which became public in July, would have sold a minority stake in a FIFA commercial rights subsidiary to investors led by Joshua Kushner's firm Thrive. It was dropped on Aug. 1 after three confederations rejected it.
Reuters
ESPN
During the meeting, council members also deferred a proposal to amend FIFA's disciplinary rules so straight red cards could not be rescinded, pending more detail on the Folarin Balogun case, in which U.S. President Donald Trump took credit for the overturning of the U.S. player's red card. Infantino has denied that Trump was a factor.
ESPN
Irishtimes
Politico
The FIFA Peace Prize given to Trump last December was referred to FIFA's football social responsibility committee, which is to report before the Dec. 16 council meeting in Doha. Some council members called for the award to be abolished.
Al Jazeera
The Guardian
European officials said they are confident a challenger to Infantino will emerge before the Nov. 18 nomination deadline, with the name kept secret. The heads of UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC have ruled themselves out of the March election.
The Telegraph
The Guardian
Daily Mail

Sources Split

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RIGHT

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ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative A

A FIFA boss who lets a politician meddle in a red card decision and tries to hand World Cup money to private investors has no business running the game. Apologies about communication mean nothing while the documents stay locked away and the questions go unanswered. Ten years in, football deserves leadership that serves leagues and fans, not an endless expansion sales pitch.

Daily Mail

Africanews

Narrative B

Owning a mistake, withdrawing the plan permanently and opening up governance to a full review is exactly how accountability is supposed to work. More than doubling development money keeps football alive in countries where stadiums and sponsors are luxuries and not givens. Tearing down that record over one abandoned proposal would only serve the richest leagues.

Saudi Arabian Football Federation on X

FIFA