FIFA president Gianni Infantino apologised to his most vocal critics at a showdown meeting of the ruling council in Zurich on Thursday, but he offered no new details or documents on the issues that concern them most.
No documents were provided on the $4.2 billion World Cup sell-off plan that Infantino launched and then dropped in July. Nor were there any details about the Folarin Balogun red card case at the World Cup or how U.S. President Donald Trump intervened to help the national team advance.
FIFA will, however, review whether to continue awarding the peace prize that was created to give to Trump last December.
Pressed by European football officials for written evidence about his secretive private equity plan for the World Cup, which provoked a global rift, Infantino asked them to submit written questions. FIFA vice president Debbie Hewitt said after the three-and-a-half-hour meeting that the request had not satisfied them.
“The man has to answer those questions. If he doesn’t answer those questions, no, he is not fit to be the FIFA president,” said Hewitt, who leads the English Football Association.
European football’s governing body, UEFA, is leading attempts to remove Infantino before or at the FIFA presidential election in March, and Thursday’s meeting did nothing to change that stance.
“No satisfactory answers were provided,” said German Football Association leader Bernd Neuendorf, one of eight UEFA delegates on the 37-member FIFA Council that Infantino chairs. The council had not met since Infantino triggered the crisis.
“We need a person of integrity, someone who can be expected to restore the reputation of the association, which has undoubtedly been lost,” Neuendorf told reporters.
An apology, but little else
Infantino opened the meeting by apologising to his council colleagues for blindsiding them and creating a furore over his private investor plan with Joshua Kushner. The plan was revealed in media reports nine days after the World Cup final in July.
“He said that with some contrition,” Hewitt said.
UEFA has also asked courts in the United States for the right to obtain evidence for a criminal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland. The court filings allege possible mismanagement of FIFA finances in the value Infantino placed on the intended subsidiary that would run tournament commercial rights. That subsidiary was to be at least 20 per cent owned by investors led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.