FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s efforts to stay in power included firing back this weekend at critics, including soccer organizations that have publicly announced they have lost confidence in him.
Infantino also went to the Dominican Republic and met with Caribbean Football Union members at an international under-14 tournament — even though he was requested to skip the event by CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani, also a FIFA vice president.
Montagliani, a likely candidate to run against Infantino in the election next spring, wrote in a letter Friday that the president’s attendance would be a distraction, undermining the youth tournament.
It’s fallout from Infantino’s highly criticized and since-aborted plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.
Pressure has since come from soccer leaders and entire governing bodies for Infantino to resign or be replaced, while he is moving forward with campaigning to be retained at the FIFA Congress in Morocco in March.
The six Nordic football associations were unified in issuing a joint statement on Sunday that they had “lost confidence” in Infantino. The collective consists of Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Faroe Islands.
“The six Nordic football associations have lost confidence in the FIFA president and have serious concerns about the governance and high-level decision-making of the organization,” the statement read.
“The Nordic football associations stand firmly with UEFA and the measures suggested by its National Associations in unison. We expect that FIFA provides binding assurances that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.
“We also support the demand put forward by AFC, CONCACAF and UEFA, for a fully-third-party review of the events surroundings the FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal.”
In the current climate, Montagliani wrote to Infantino in a letter seen by multiple media outlets, “I believe that considering the governance crisis surrounding FIFA as a result of your controversial FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, the media will focus on this situation, which will unfortunately significantly take away from the technical nature of the CFU (Caribbean Football Union) youth competition.
“As such, I respectfully ask you in the name of football to reconsider your attendance as it will unfortunately undermine the technical nature of this important youth development activity.”
Montagliani leads CONCACAF, which governs soccer in North America, Central America and the Caribbean.
Infantino went anyway, saying through FIFA that he received a warm welcome on Friday in the Dominican Republic, where he met with presidents of the CFU, a subconfederation of CONCACAF consisting of 31 Caribbean countries.
“It’s important to engage, to have a dialogue, to express views and opinions — a lot (has) been happening in the last few weeks and it’s important that you hear, you listen and you’re able to, also, express what your feelings are,” Infantino said in an article on the FIFA website.
“I think that, whether it’s in Africa or in Asia or the Caribbean, everyone acknowledges and accepts and respects the transformative work that we have been doing all together in the last ten years. We have transformed FIFA, made it to what it is and, it is important that we always remember, and I stress again today to the CFU members, we are here with one job: To grow football in every corner of the world.”
He continued, with what could be considered a swipe at his detractors.
“We want to grow football in every one of our 211 countries in the world,” Infantino said. “Some, unfortunately, don’t need and they don’t want that others grow, but we need to narrow this gap between the big, big countries and all the others.
“The big ones, they are doing a great job, and we commend and congratulate them, and they should continue to grow as well, obviously, but we need to give a chance to all the others. We need to find investments for all the others — opportunities for all the others.”
Shortly after the conclusion of the 2026 World Cup, Infantino announced his intention to consolidate the World Cup’s commercial rights — encompassing broadcast, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing — under a new commercial venture and to sell stakes in that venture to private equity. He pitched the potential to raise billions of dollars that could be reinvested in the game.
That didn’t soften what many saw as an attempt to hand minority ownership in the world’s biggest tournament to private investors with their own aims.
UEFA (European football’s continental governing body), CONCACAF and the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) unanimously opposed the plan, with UEFA going as far as to promise a boycott of World Cups and other FIFA tournaments should it go through.
