Gianni Infantino will remain as Fifa president after he received the backing of senior executives in a meeting in Morocco, despite world football’s governing body admitting “mistakes” have been made.
Infantino summoned members of the management board to Fifa’s Africa office in Rabat on Wednesday following mounting criticism of his aborted attempt to sell off stakes in Fifa competitions to private investors, with the organisation releasing a statement of support four hours after the meeting ended.
European football’s governing body Uefa said at the weekend that it has lost confidence in Infantino, calling the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal a “shabby, back room, opaque deal”.
Much criticism has come from within Fifa, including secretary general Mattias Grofstrom, who was at Wednesday’s meeting. In an internal memo sent to Fifa staff on Tuesday, he wrote that the situation is “a sad and reproachable series of events”.
However, in a statement following the meeting, Grofstrom and the managament board “reaffirmed their full support” for Infantino as president.
Infantino had offered Fifa’s 211 member associations $40m (£30m) if they backed a proposal for private investment in its tournaments, including the men’s and women’s World Cups, through a new subsidiary, FFE.
Fifa said that during Wednesday’s meeting “mistakes” regarding FFE were “acknowledged”, saying it was “not the intention” for the Fifa council and members association to “feel excluded from the process and that the process should have been handled differently”.
The governing body added it “acknowledged that errors were also made after the proposal was leaked to media” – with the Times breaking the story of Infantino’s plan on 28 July.
Fifa said it had written to the council and members association to apologise for these errors “with a commitment to ensure they do not happen again”, adding it will now conduct a review.
However, the statement also said the organisation “will no longer tolerate any attacks on its integrity, good governance and due process and will take all necessary measures to protect and safeguard its name and reputation”.
Earlier, Fifa denied a story in the Times that Infantino had promised Morocco it will host the 2030 World Cup final in exchange for its support.
Fifa said it was a “false and misleading” claim and that a decision on where to hold the final, with the tournament also hosted by Spain and Portugal, will be made “in due course”.
