FIFA Council: Ducking and diving Infantino roasted at meeting but refuses to answer integrity questions

October 16 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has survived a grilling over his much-maligned World Cup privatisation plans by the FIFA Council, cementing, for now, his position at the helm of the world federation. 

On Thursday, after months of global governance turmoil over the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme, an embattled Infantino at last came face-to-face with his executive board and he began the meeting by apologising over the plans.

Infantino expressed regret over the communication and lack of consulting as he put this deal together, but went to lengths to say that the proposal had never been finalised. He refused to apologise over his choice of partner – Thrive Capital and Joshua Kushner. 

In a video, released after the Council meeting by FIFA, Infantino said: “But what is important to remember is that it was a proposal, so in no way a done deal, just a proposal that actually intended to enable FIFA to invest more in our member associations as opposed to replacing support from existing resources.” 

The reality is that it was a done deal, it just hadn’t been authorised by FIFA’s membership, who Infantino had clearly miscalculated.

His apology was followed by a presentation from FIFA’s lawyers, Linklaters, that sources say was both weak and unconvincing, to the point of being intellectually insulting, as they insisted that the FFE plans would have been good for FIFA. FIFA of course had paid the lawyers for the presentation but it appears they weren’t Infantino’s advisors in the deal contracts that Infantino had drawn up with Thrive Capital, the formation of the FFE corporation or a further personal contract reported to exist with Infantino that outlined his services as he transitioned to lead the new company. They left the board room without taking questions – after which FIFA’s directors, with the exception of Emilio Garcia, were asked to leave.

Infantino then faced a barrage of questions predominantly from the European Council members on the topic, including when he started talks and negotiations with Thrive Capital.

Instead, he was in survival mode, “giving answers that weren’t answers” according to one Council member. The interrogation was so intense that Infantino could not keep up with the questioning and instead said they should send written questions and that he would to them all later.

Council members, including from Concacaf, also demanded to see documents pertaining to FFE, but once again Infantino and FIFA refused to engage with the request. At the end of August, UEFA filed motions in US courts, targeting the discovery of FFE documents. The request mirrored one from the US House Justice committee that Infantino has also refused to respond to.

European Council members left the meeting dissatisfied having since the end of July demanded he explain his actions and arguing that his position as FIFA president was untenable. But Infantino has refused to step down and is still not accounting for his actions. Instead, he has doubled down on protecting his presidential ambitions, traveling the world to campaign for a renewal of his leadership next march at FIFA’s Congress in Morocca.

After the meeting English FA chair Debbie Hewitt questioned the FIFA president’s fitness to lead.

“We didn’t get answers to anything that we had specifically requested. I think the man [Infantino] has to answer those questions, and if he doesn’t answer those questions, he’s not fit to be Fifa president. That was what was shared in the meeting,” said Hewitt.

It was one of the few FIFA Council meetings of note during Infantino’s decade-long reign during which he has dominated FIFA strategy and turned the Council into little more than a rubber-stamping exercise for his agenda. Infantino has only previously encountered resistance when he sought to sell off FIFA’s competitions to Softbank in 2018 (a similar scheme in principle to his 2026 attempt at a sell-off) and when the expanded FIFA Club World Cup endangered the world federation’s reserves.

Germany FA president Bernd Neuendorf said immediately after the meeting: “The whole administration has to be reformed and the whole governance has to be reformed. But I’m pretty clear here that this is not possible with Gianni as the responsible person at Fifa. So we need a complete restart, I think, a political restart of persons who represent Fifa.

“Yes, he apologised, but I didn’t have the feeling that this apology was because of the FFE project in total. My impression was it was just because it wasn’t brought forward to the council and no one was involved.”

The atmosphere during the four-hour meeting was frequently acrimonious. On the eve of the Council, Infantino and the board had met for a more convivial dinner at Lulu in Zurich. 

Cindy Cone, Fiji’s Rajesh Patel and Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad Khalifa Al Thani attended the meeting online. 

The next time Infantino is scheduled to meet his employers and accusers in a semi-public forum will be the FIFA Extraordinary Congress on November 23, to be held virtually. It will take place five days after nominations for the next FIFA presidential election in March 2027 have closed.

Between now and then expect the Qatar financed private jet Infantino travels the world in to clock a lot more air miles.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]. Additional reporting by [email protected]