Norway’s soccer federation has asked Gianni Infantino to step down as FIFA president, the strongest European rebuke yet after a week of turmoil over a failed plan to sell World Cup commercial rights.
‘When trust is gone, leadership must also be assessed,’ federation president Lise Klaveness said Thursday. ‘We therefore believe that Gianni Infantino’s time as FIFA president should be over, and ask him to resign.’
UEFA said Thursday that its threat to boycott the World Cup remains in place, despite FIFA abandoning and apologising for the private investment scheme. The English Football Association has also withdrawn support for Infantino’s re-election next March.
FIFA’s proposal involved channelling its competitions through a commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise. Three continents rejected the plan, leaving Infantino isolated as he met with top staff in Rabat, Morocco.
Yet support comes from other quarters. Mexico‘s federation said it ‘supports the leadership’ of Infantino, while Argentina‘s association thanked him for a decade of ‘transparent governance.’ CONMEBOL, the South American confederation, said it would not back an accelerated attempt to oust him, and the Confederation of African Football expressed unanimous support.
Europe, however, remains angry. LaLiga president Javier Tebas accused FIFA of a ‘grave breakdown of institutional governance,’ saying associations and executives were kept in the dark. Norway also said it will raise concerns about FIFA’s handling of the peace prize awarded to Donald Trump and the suspension of US striker Folarin Balogun.
Klaveness argued that FIFA needs ‘new leadership to rebuild trust, strengthen good governance and ensure that the organization’s own reforms are actually implemented.’