“The pressure is growing on the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, with many countries withdrawing their support following the bungled World Cup sell-off. However, how key is Infantino’s relationship with each confederation and is it likely that an election contest will actually happen? We look at the key considerations, confederation by confederation. 1) How does each confederation view Infantino’s re-election? Uefa (Europe) has firmly led the moves under way to achieve Infantino’s removal. The threat last week to boycott all Fifa competitions if the Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme was not scrapped contributed hugely to its failure. In a scathing statement on Saturday, Uefa said the current Fifa leadership had “not only lost Uefa’s confidence, but also that of many other members of the football family”, and pledged to push for change. Some Uefa member associations, including the English and Welsh FAs, have withdrawn their letters of support for Infantino’s re‑election and efforts are continuing to ensure others follow suit in a bid to weaken his position irretrievably. … Reports of AFC (Asia) support for Uefa are premature; the confederation is divided. The AFC has spoken out, strongly in relative terms compared to its usual pronouncements, against the proposed World Cup deal and has called for reform of Fifa. The AFC has been a staunch supporter in the past but if it looks as if Infantino is in trouble the AFC leadership, which was genuinely angry at how the proposal was made (probably more so than the actual details of the deal), could switch sides, which would probably confirm Infantino’s downfall if Uefa and Concacaf oppose but it is not a foregone conclusion – some in Asia are not convinced that Uefa has the numbers. The big problem is that, while the AFC leadership may want Infantino out, most individual Asian federations do not want him to be replaced. The AFC president, Sheikh Salman, has ambitions of his own and has been historically successful at preserving AFC unity but this will be tricky especially as west Asian nations such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia support Infantino and are influential in Asia. …”
***Guardian***
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