UEFA have dropped the boycott, and they still want Infantino out in March

Europe’s football federations gathered in Monaco on Thursday, hours before the Champions League draw, and put away the weapon they had been holding to FIFA’s head for a month. The threat to boycott every FIFA competition is gone. Gianni Infantino’s problem has not gone with it.

UEFA’s 55 members were handed a letter guaranteeing that the plan which started all this will not return in any form. That was the condition they set, and it has been met. What UEFA has not dropped is the part Infantino should be more worried about, which is the effort to unseat him at the FIFA presidential election in March 2027.

What Infantino actually proposed

The Times revealed the plan last month. FIFA would create a subsidiary valued at around $20 billion to control its commercial rights, the World Cup included, and 20 per cent of that spinoff would go to investors led by a New York fund created by Joshua Kushner. The vehicle had a name, FIFA Forward Enterprise. It lasted four days before Infantino withdrew it.

Four days is fast, and it tells you how hard the reaction landed. UEFA led it. The Asian Football Confederation, which India belongs to, backed the objection, and so did Concacaf. Senior figures inside FIFA criticised both the plan and the man who brought it.

On 1 August, UEFA said it had no confidence in Infantino’s leadership. Its 55 federations then voted to boycott all FIFA competitions until the proposal was dropped “in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership”.

A tournament starting on 5 September forced the issue

A boycott was never going to be cost-free for the people threatening it. The FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup begins in Poland on 5 September with 24 teams, six of them European: England, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the hosts. France and Spain had already named their squads. Those players spent weeks not knowing whether they were going to a World Cup.

They are going. FIFA’s response to the Monaco decision was gracious in the way an organisation can afford to be when it has just won a round, saying it looked forward to welcoming every team to Poland.

Much of the football media read the whole thing as a win for Infantino, and it is hard to argue. UEFA talked about boycotts and legal action for a month, and what it has to show for it is a letter.

The arithmetic decided the strategy

Removing Infantino by force was examined and abandoned, and the reason is counting. A no-confidence motion would need a change to the FIFA Statutes, which requires three quarters of the membership. With 211 federations, that means 159 votes, a total UEFA has concluded is unrealistic.

Winning an election is a different sum. A candidate needs 106 of the 211, and Europe brings 55 of those before anyone else is asked. That is not a majority, but no other confederation starts from a base like it, which is why the plan has shifted from removing Infantino to beating him.

Then there is the catch. UEFA does not have a candidate. Aleksander Ceferin ruled himself out earlier this week. Concacaf president Victor Montagliani, who is also a FIFA vice-president, is regarded as a serious possibility, and so far nobody has agreed to put their name forward. Nominations close on 18 November, four months before the 211 federations vote in Rabat.

The count is moving

Italy’s federation withdrew its backing on Wednesday, citing “the recent initiatives promoted by the FIFA president concerning governance and the development of international competitions”. Romania’s executive committee voted the same day not to support a new mandate, with FRF president Razvan Burleanu saying FIFA needs a leader “who can produce consensus and unity”.

Neither was first. Wales and England pulled their support at the start of August, days after the plan collapsed, having previously written letters backing him. Ireland’s FAI followed on 13 August.

Infantino is not short of friends either. Morocco, Egypt and Qatar all issued statements supporting him during the worst of it, and it is worth noticing where the election is being held. The 211 federations will vote in Rabat.

The former players cannot agree on him either. Mikael Silvestre, who sits on FIFA’s Players’ Voice Panel, posted a statement titled “Enough is Enough!” that Lucy Bronze, Emmanuel Petit and David James shared. On Wednesday, Cafu, Christian Vieri, Pepe and Esteban Cambiasso posted in support of Infantino. All four are FIFA Legends, a designation the governing body hands out itself, which is worth keeping in mind alongside the timing.

Why a narrow win would not save him

Infantino has run FIFA since February 2016 and was on course to be re-elected unopposed for a fourth and final term, taking him to 2031, until the investor plan blew that up. He remains the favourite. He may well win.

The trouble is that a close result does not read as a mandate. A president who scrapes past 106 votes after a month of federations publicly abandoning him governs on borrowed authority, and every delegate in Rabat will know the number. That, rather than a boycott of an Under-20 tournament, was always the serious threat, and it is still live.

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