Infantino Survives as FIFA President After Emergency Meeting

By Wednesday evening, however, Infantino made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere for the moment. In a stunning reversal, FIFA announced that its top executives had fallen into line behind Infantino and “reaffirmed their full support” for him, just days after the organization’s Secretary General and chief operating officer had personally criticized him in public.

“FIFA’s top management is fully confident that the outcomes of today’s meeting will strengthen FIFA’s governance, help restore confidence in the organization and enable us to prepare for the major events and challenges ahead in a united and transparent manner,” FIFA said after the crisis talks in Rabat, Morocco.

If FIFA went to great lengths to show that it had quelled the rebellion from inside its own administration, Infantino’s position isn’t safe yet. What will actually decide his future are FIFA’s 211 member associations, who have loudly criticized him ever since news of the FFE project leaked out.

Their chance to oust him will come at FIFA’s next presidential election in March of 2027, when Infantino intends to run for a third full term—although no opposition candidate has yet thrown their hat into the ring. A few weeks ago, Infantino boasted that he could count on the backing of at least 200 of the 211 nations under the FIFA umbrella in its one-country, one-vote system. But much of that support has since collapsed, particularly in Europe and North America.

Now, Infantino is trying to rescue as much of it as he can by first apologizing for keeping so much of the organization in the dark around the FFE proposal.

“The process should have been handled differently,” FIFA said.

In a letter directly to the member associations, FIFA also vowed to conduct a review to ensure that these errors in communication and transparency “do not happen again.”