Trump pal Gianni Infantino is facing serious calls to resign after his controversial plan to give himself a significant raise while selling a stake in the World Cup’s commercial empire collapsed.
UEFA, European soccer’s 55-member governing body, has led the revolt against Infantino’s proposal, voting unanimously on Thursday to boycott all FIFA competitions if the deal went ahead.
The threat ultimately forced Infantino to abandon the plan, but UEFA officials have now gone further, signaling that the fallout has fueled calls for a change in FIFA leadership.
The European organization issued a statement saying it “cannot keep going” under the current leadership, criticizing what it described as “secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game.”
“We must identify those responsible and hold them to account,” read a statement shared by The Telegraph. The only individual directly identified in the statement was Infantino himself, with UEFA accusing him of failing to uphold the promises he made when he was elected FIFA president in 2016.
Infantino’s proposal immediately sparked outrage after reports suggested the deal could have ultimately allowed him to earn compensation on a scale comparable to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, according to The Times. Goodell makes around $64 million annually—ten times more than Infantino’s current salary at FIFA of just over $6 million.
Citing Infantino’s own previous remarks that FIFA’s money belonged to its member associations, not to him, and that FIFA was an organization dedicated to serving the development of the game, UEFA argued that he had fallen short of those commitments.
“On both these promises, he has failed to deliver,” the statement said, adding that UEFA’s leadership had “lost confidence” among many soccer associations. UEFA warned that “no option” would be “off the table” as it meets with other confederations to discuss the next steps.
UEFA cannot simply sack Infantino, but it can make his grip on FIFA increasingly fragile by turning Europe’s soccer power bloc against him, the same force that helped kill his $20 billion plan to sell minority stakes in the World Cup.
Infantino revealed earlier this week that FIFA planned to sell a 21 percent stake in a newly created entity, FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), to private investors to oversee the commercial operations of its biggest events, including the World Cup.
Adding to the controversy, the investor group behind FFE was reportedly set to be led by a firm run by New York venture capitalist Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Trump and Infantino have maintained a close relationship for years, one neither has made much effort to hide.
Last year, Infantino backed Trump’s bid for the Nobel Peace Prize, and after the president was overlooked, he quickly created an alternative award that was later presented in December, in what The New York Times reported was an apparent effort to strengthen ties ahead of the World Cup in the United States.
The pair’s relationship also came under scrutiny during the World Cup, when FIFA reversed a suspension for one of the U.S. team’s star strikers after Trump reportedly called Infantino, asking for the red-card punishment to be reviewed. The two later appeared together at the final, where they helped present medals to the winning Spanish team.
