FIFA president Gianni Infantino spent five days last week trying to sell minority stakes in the World Cup to private investors, then dropped the plan under a wave of opposition unlike anything world football had seen in years. But UEFA, Europe's governing body, says that is not the end of it. On Saturday, UEFA formally declared it has "lost confidence" in Infantino and told him to resign or face a no-confidence vote backed by all 55 of its member associations. England's Football Association backed the call. The Asian Football Confederation, which had opposed the plan and expressed solidarity with UEFA, stopped short of joining the resignation demand.

UEFA Says the Crisis Goes Deeper Than the Plan

UEFA and the confederations that fought the proposal argue that one withdrawal doesn't fix the governance failure it exposed.

UEFA says dropping the plan is not the same as accountability. In its formal statement, UEFA accused Infantino of running "secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game." The body declared the World Cup "cannot be treated as an investment product" and that "no part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors." It also said Infantino broke transparency promises he made when he first took office in 2016. UEFA needs just 43 of its 55 member associations to formally call a no-confidence vote — it has publicly said all 55 are ready.

England's Football Association backed UEFA, calling for "a full and robust review of FIFA's leadership and governance." La Liga president Javier Tebas was direct: "Infantino should resign; his time has come."

The plan itself gave critics everything they needed. Infantino's FIFA Forward Enterprise would have transferred broadcast, sponsorship, ticketing, and licensing control for the World Cup and other events to a new commercial subsidiary, funded by Thrive Eternal — the permanent capital vehicle of Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital — and JP Morgan. Infantino offered each of FIFA's 211 federations up to $40 million to accept by September 19. Critics called that coercion dressed as consultation. Carlos Cordeiro, FIFA's senior adviser and former U.S. Soccer president, resigned before the plan was withdrawn. He said: "It is a bad deal for FIFA's member associations, a bad deal for football, and a bad deal for the long-term future of the game."

FIFA and Its Allies Say the Withdrawal Should Close the Case

Infantino and South America's governing body argue that dropping the plan was the right response and that UEFA's continued push is the real overreach.

Infantino says he listened, reversed course, and UEFA is overreaching. He called the FFE plan "a golden opportunity to turbocharge the development of the game globally" and insisted it was "a proposal, an offer, not an obligation." When criticism intensified, he posted on Instagram: "While you divide, we unite... while you spread hatred, we worked tirelessly to unite."

CONMEBOL, South America's governing body, backed Infantino unanimously. The FFE was also designed with smaller and developing federations in mind — FIFA claimed nearly 200 of its 211 member associations had initially signaled support, drawn by the $40 million offer at a time when many national programs are severely underfunded. For those federations, the plan's logic was straightforward: immediate, meaningful cash from the world's most profitable sporting property. Their view now: the plan is gone, and there is nothing left to fight about.

Now the Presidential Race Is Opening

Five serious figures are positioning for the March 2027 FIFA election, and the governance debate will shape who runs.

Infantino has lost his grip on the race — and the field is filling up. The deadline for candidates to declare for the March 2027 election in Rabat, Morocco, is November 18, 2026. Al Jazeera named five figures now in the conversation on Saturday. Nasser al-Khelaifi, PSG chairman and beIN Media Group head, chairs the European Football Clubs lobby and leads many presidential lists. Victor Montagliani, CONCACAF president and FIFA vice president, is another. Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, the AFC president and FIFA senior vice president who narrowly lost to Infantino in 2016, is back in the picture. UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin has announced he plans to leave UEFA in 2027. Patrice Motsepe, the South African billionaire who leads Africa's confederation, is the outsider candidate.

The deeper question several analysts are raising: does swapping Infantino fix FIFA's actual problem? Infantino developed the FFE entirely in secret and nearly pushed it through — he told federations he had 200 supporters before opponents had seen the full terms. A new president inherits the same concentrated structure. Critics argue that without governance reform, the same playbook is available to whoever sits in the chair next.

Where This Lands

UEFA holds the institutional leverage — 55 member associations ready to back a no-confidence vote, more than the 43 required — and the deadline is November 18. Infantino either steps down by then, or he turns this into a full presidential election campaign with UEFA's no-confidence threat as its main weapon. CONMEBOL's unified support means he still has a coalition, particularly among the smaller federations that wanted the FFE money and now have nothing to show for the fight. The election pits European football's institutional weight against a bloc of smaller associations that still see Infantino as their best path to more revenue.

Sources