“Acting Completely Alone”— European Leagues Blast Infantino Over FIFA Plan

Infantino faces leadership crisis 

European Leagues: Infantino’s position at FIFA looks untenable as UEFA and CONCACAF lose confidence in Infantino over World Cup plan.

Infantino's position at FIFA looks untenable, says head of European leagues...

European Leagues chief says Gianni Infantino’s position as FIFA president is now "untenable" after his attempt to sell part of the World Cup commercial rights collapsed, he said on Sunday.

  

Claudius Schafer, who leads the body representing 53 professional men’s and women’s leagues, said there was “only one consequence” for Infantino after the proposal sparked backlash from confederations across the regions.

“When I saw how this whole thing unfolded and that ‌FIFA's key bodies weren't involved, then ⁠there's essentially only ‌one consequence in any company or association,” Schafer told Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung.

Asked if this meant that Infantino was now unacceptable as FIFA president, Schafer said: “This is usually the consequence when someone in a company pushes such ⁠a business deal forward without anyone knowing about it.”

On Friday, Infantino announced that FIFA had dropped the proposal following strong opposition.

On Saturday, UEFA and CONCACAF, FIFA’s regional bodies, said they no longer had faith in his leadership.

Schafer, who is also CEO of the Swiss Football League, said the plan showed FIFA was more focused on boosting profits for outside parties by staging even more and larger tournaments going forward.

“It's solely about the financial advantages; everything else is completely ignored,” he said.

Schafer said the European Leagues rejected the plan because it would pile more games onto an already congested international schedule, at the expense of domestic leagues.

“Nobody knew about the plans, not even the FIFA Council, the governing body of FIFA. I was very surprised that ⁠the president was ⁠acting completely alone ‌in this matter.”