World football has spent this week discovering that its governing body can survive a bad idea, but not necessarily the reaction to one.
Gianni Infantino aborted his plan to sell private stakes in Fifa's tournaments - including the men's and women's World Cups - through a subsidiary called Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE). The withdrawal did not end the crisis. On Friday, the Norwegian Football Federation became the first national association to explicitly demand that the 56-year-old resign as Fifa president.
"He does not have the institutional trust required to govern Fifa stably in the times we are in," NFF president Lise Klaveness said. "There is no going back for Gianni Infantino. The international football co-operation is very much in trouble... we want to ask the Fifa president to resign now."
The deal that started it
At the centre of the affair is a straightforward transaction with extraordinary implications. Infantino offered every national association $40m (about £30m) if they backed a proposal to bring private investment into Fifa's tournaments via FFE.
Uefa's characterisation of the proposal has become the defining phrase of the week: a "shabby, back room, opaque deal". Europe's governing body says it has lost confidence in the Fifa president, and that its conditions have not been met even though the plan was withdrawn - leaving a European boycott of Fifa events, including the World Cup, formally on the table.
Infantino has apologised for "errors" in the proposals. He did not resign, and after a meeting in Morocco on Wednesday he retained the backing of senior executives.
The map of the split
What makes this different from previous Fifa turbulence is that the sport has divided along confederation lines rather than collapsing into a single scandal narrative.
| Bloc / association | Position |
|---|---|
| Norway (NFF) | Explicitly calls for resignation |
| England, Wales, Croatia, Albania | Support withdrawn, no explicit resignation call |
| Uefa | Confidence lost; boycott still possible |
| Concacaf | Demands a "comprehensive reckoning" of his presidency |
| Mexico (FMF) | Backs Infantino, breaking with Concacaf |
| Conmebol (South America) | Backs him; opposes removal without a 211-member vote |
| Argentina (AFA) | Praises him for acknowledging his "errors" |
| CAF (Africa) | Unanimous backing |
Norway went one step further than England, Wales, Croatia and Albania, all of which withdrew support without calling for him to go. Klaveness, a qualified lawyer, listed grievances her federation has raised across her four-year tenure: questions over how tournaments are awarded, the inaugural Fifa peace prize awarded to US President Donald Trump in December, and the overturning of a ban on American forward Folarin Balogun during the recent World Cup following a phone call from Trump.
Notably, Norway is not forcing a procedural confrontation. "We are not going to ask for an extraordinary [Uefa board] meeting, we will ask him to resign in our dialogue with Fifa," Klaveness said - leaving open whether other countries follow.
Why South America and Africa held the line
Conmebol did not offer unconditional support. It expressed "concern about the repeated unilateral actions taken without resorting to dialogue or the institutional mechanisms provided for dealing with this type of situation" - a rebuke of process, not of the man.
But it drew a hard line on method: any attempt to remove Infantino must go through a vote of all 211 Fifa members. Conmebol president Alejandro Dominguez, who accompanied Infantino at the inauguration of Colombia's new president Abelardo de la Espriella on Friday, praised the "enormously successful" 2026 World Cup and said simply: "we stand with Gianni."
On next year's presidential election he was pointedly open: "If there were another candidate who wanted to run... I think it's legitimate for people to come forward, put forward their candidacy, propose an electoral contest, which could be very healthy for football, and we'll see who wins."
That is the institutional argument now protecting Infantino. Europe supplies most of football's commercial value; the 211-member congress supplies the votes. Those two facts have pointed in different directions before, and they do again.
Mexico - co-host of the 2026 World Cup - broke ranks with its own confederation to back him, saying the FMF "supports president Infantino's leadership in continuing to promote the development of football through institutional strengthening". Argentina, the tournament's runners-up, described his decade in charge as "centred on the development of soccer worldwide and institutional strength based on a clear, stable, and transparent governance model".
The second front
While the governance argument played out, a separate allegation landed. According to a Daily Telegraph investigation, a woman said to have had a relationship with Infantino received a severance payment from Uefa during his time as its general secretary between 2009 and 2016.
Infantino's response was categorical. "Fifa president Gianni Infantino strongly denies these allegations, and they are categorically untrue. Any insinuation of inappropriate conduct or violation of statutes or regulations is defamatory," a Fifa spokesman told the paper, adding: "No employee at Uefa and Fifa has ever raised a complaint regarding Mr Infantino's behaviour because there never was an incident where he was involved."
Uefa confirmed that "a departure payment was made to the individual in question", said it covered fees for an MBA at a local business school, and said all payments complied with the regulations in force at the time - regulations since tightened to "reflect those found in a modern, high-profile organisation".
Infantino joined Uefa in 2000, became secretary general in 2009, and was appointed Fifa president in 2016.
The boycott question
The threat with genuine commercial teeth is Uefa's. European teams could still boycott Fifa events, and Uefa has said its conditions remain unmet despite the plan's withdrawal. France, meanwhile, is set to take part in the U20 Women's World Cup despite the boycott threat - an early sign that a unified European withdrawal is harder to organise than to announce.
A boycott would be unprecedented in modern football and financially self-harming on both sides. Broadcast and sponsorship values in Fifa competitions are heavily weighted toward European participation; European federations depend on Fifa distributions and on their players' access to the sport's biggest stage. That mutual dependency has historically produced negotiated climbdowns rather than ruptures.
What happens next
- Whether Norway is joined. Klaveness explicitly said the NFF will "see which other countries eventually join in". One resignation call is a position; five is a movement.
- Uefa's conditions. Europe has not published a satisfaction test. Until it does, the boycott threat stays live and unfalsifiable.
- The election. A Fifa presidential election is due next year. Conmebol has already blessed the idea of a contested race - which may prove the exit route that suits everyone: no removal, just an opponent.
- CAF's durability. African backing is currently unanimous. It is also the bloc with the most to lose from a Fifa funding disruption, and therefore the one under the most quiet pressure.
- Governance reform. The FFE episode exposed how far a Fifa president can travel on a commercial proposal before member associations learn the details. Any credible settlement will include a change to how that happens.
The underlying story is the one Protunez examined earlier this year in how investment funds and streaming deals rebuilt global sport: once outside capital becomes the growth engine, governance disputes stop being about ethics committees and start being about ownership. The World Cup was the last major asset without an equity story attached. Someone tried to attach one, and the sport discovered it had never agreed who owns it.
Why the World Cup was the last unpriced asset in sport
To see why this proposal detonated, look at what has already happened everywhere else in football''s economy.
Club ownership has been financialised: sovereign funds, private equity and multi-club groups now hold stakes across leagues and continents. Broadcast rights have been sliced by territory, by platform and by highlight package. Data rights, betting rights, image rights and even training-ground access have been separately monetised. Stadium naming, sleeve sponsorship and matchball supply are all discrete revenue lines with their own contracts.
The one asset that had never been divided into tradable units was the World Cup itself. Fifa owns it, member associations nominally own Fifa, and the value has always been distributed rather than capitalised. That structure is inefficient in a strict financial sense - and it is also the source of Fifa''s legitimacy, because a tournament that belongs to 211 associations is a tournament nobody can be excluded from.
Fifa Forward Enterprise proposed to convert that arrangement into an equity story, offering associations $40m each to approve it. Whatever the commercial merits, the offer forced a question football had never had to answer out loud: if the World Cup can be part-sold, who owned it in the first place?
The commercial stakes of a European boycott
Uefa''s boycott threat is the only lever in this dispute with the power to change Fifa''s revenue line, which is why it dominates the negotiation even though nobody expects it to be used.
European participation underpins the valuation of Fifa''s media rights in every major market. European clubs employ most of the players who appear at World Cups, European broadcasters pay premium rates, and European sponsors buy against European audiences. A tournament without those teams would not merely be diminished sportingly - it would breach the audience assumptions on which existing contracts were priced.
But the dependency runs both ways. National associations rely on Fifa development funding, and players have short careers and one or two realistic World Cup cycles. A boycott asks federations to spend their athletes'' peak years on a governance dispute. France''s decision to take part in the U20 Women''s World Cup despite the boycott threat is an early indication of how quickly abstract solidarity meets a specific squad list.
The likeliest outcome, on precedent, is a negotiated settlement: published conditions, a governance reform package, and a commitment that no commercial restructuring of Fifa tournaments proceeds without a member vote. That would let Uefa claim substance and let Infantino stay.
The election is the real deadline
Everything in this dispute now points toward next year''s presidential election, and Conmebol''s Alejandro Dominguez said the quiet part clearly when he called a contested race "very healthy for football".
That formulation solves the problem for everyone who does not want a removal. It denies Europe an immediate scalp, it protects the principle that only the 211-member congress decides the presidency, and it gives dissatisfied associations a legitimate route to change leadership without a constitutional crisis. It also puts every federation currently issuing statements on the record before a ballot they will have to justify.
Infantino''s position, therefore, is stronger than the headlines suggest and weaker than his allies claim. He has the votes today. What he has lost is the ability to act unilaterally - and for a Fifa president, unilateral action has historically been the job''s main power.
What supporters actually get from this
Very little of this dispute has been conducted in public with fans in the room. No supporter organisation was consulted on Fifa Forward Enterprise, and none is party to the boycott negotiations. Yet the outcomes bear directly on ticket allocations, kick-off times set for distant broadcast markets, and whether future tournaments are organised around attendance or around media windows.
The strongest argument for the governance reforms now under discussion is not ethical. It is that the sport''s core asset has become valuable enough for outside capital to bid on it, and the people who fill the stands have no formal seat at the table where that bid is considered.
FAQ
Why are people calling for Infantino to resign? Because of his attempt to sell private stakes in Fifa tournaments, including the World Cup, through the Fifa Forward Enterprise subsidiary. The plan was aborted after a backlash.
Which countries have withdrawn support? Norway has explicitly called for his resignation. England, Wales, Croatia and Albania have withdrawn support without demanding he quit. Uefa says it has lost confidence in him.
Who is backing him? CAF backs him unanimously, Conmebol supports him, and the football associations of Mexico and Argentina have publicly endorsed his leadership.
Was money offered to associations? Yes. Infantino offered all associations $40m to back the private investment proposal.
Could Europe boycott the World Cup? Uefa says a boycott remains possible because its conditions have not been met, though France is set to play in the U20 Women's World Cup despite the threat.
Has Infantino responded to the Uefa payment allegations? Yes, he strongly denies them and calls them categorically untrue. Uefa confirmed a departure payment was made and said it complied with the rules at the time.
Sources and further reading
- BBC Sport: Norway call on Infantino to resign but two countries back Fifa president
- BBC Sport: Infantino denies claims Uefa paid off alleged 'lover'
- Fifa: inside.fifa.com
- Uefa: uefa.com
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