Fifa Council meeting and the European push for a presidential rival

Key takeaways

• The Guardian reports that Gianni Infantino began a three-and-a-half-hour Fifa Council meeting by apologising for not consulting members over his abandoned World Cup sell-off plan.
• According to the Guardian, European football associations put dozens of questions to the Fifa president, including on the Fifa Forward programme, and did not get answers.
• The Guardian reports that the heads of the English and German football associations questioned whether Infantino is fit to lead Fifa.
• European football leaders are said to be increasingly confident of finding a candidate for next year's Fifa presidential election, but a Uefa-based challenger would still need votes from other confederations to win.

The search for a candidate in the Fifa presidential election

The most significant consequence of the meeting looks ahead. The Guardian reports that European football leaders are increasingly confident they will find someone to stand against Infantino in next year's Fifa presidential election. No candidate has been named in the reporting, and it is not known when one might come forward.

To see why that matters, it helps to know how the election works. The Fifa president is not chosen by the Council or by the confederations. The Fifa Congress elects the president, and every member association has one vote. A large footballing nation carries the same weight as a small one. As a result, the European associations cannot decide the outcome on their own, however influential they are inside the game. A European-backed challenger would need to win votes from associations in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania, many of which depend heavily on Fifa's central funding.

Candidates also have to clear procedural hurdles before they reach the ballot. A minimum number of member associations must nominate them, and they must pass eligibility and integrity checks carried out by an independent review body. This is why hostile criticism in a Council meeting does not, on its own, produce a contest. Turning dissatisfaction into a candidacy means finding someone willing to stand, getting the nominations together and building support across continents.

The fitness-to-govern challenge from the English and German associations

The Guardian reports that after the meeting, the heads of the English and German football associations questioned whether Infantino is fit to govern. Both are among the most commercially and politically influential national associations in world football. That makes their open scepticism notable, even though each still has only one vote in the Congress.

The claim is about governance rather than any rule breach. It reflects a view that the president should be accountable to Fifa's governing structures and should answer to them. The Guardian's report does not say that any formal motion, complaint or procedural step followed. Fifa's statutes give the Council no mechanism to remove a president simply because members have lost confidence. The way to change the leadership is through the Congress, which is why the dispute leads straight back to the election.

Infantino's apology over the World Cup sell-off plan

The Guardian reports that Infantino opened the long-awaited gathering of Fifa's 37-member Council by apologising for not consulting it about his plan to sell off part of the World Cup, which has now been dropped. The source material does not set out exactly what the plan involved, what would have been sold or to whom, so those details are not known here.

The structural point is still clear. The men's World Cup is Fifa's main commercial asset. Broadcasting, sponsorship and hospitality revenue from the tournament pays for most of the organisation's activity, including the money it sends to member associations. Any proposal to sell a stake in that asset, or to change how it is owned or exploited, goes to the heart of how Fifa funds itself.

The Council is Fifa's strategic body. Its members are elected through the confederations, and the president chairs it. Its role includes setting the organisation's overall direction and overseeing its finances. A strategic proposal of that size moving forward without the Council being consulted is the kind of process failure that apologies tend to follow. The apology acknowledges the failure, but it does not explain how the decision was handled or what safeguards might stop it happening again. Those were among the matters European members wanted answered.

The unanswered questions on Fifa Forward

According to the Guardian, the European associations put dozens of questions to Infantino on a range of subjects, and he did not answer them. One subject was Fifa Forward. The full list of questions has not been published in the source material.

Fifa Forward is Fifa's development programme. It sends money from the organisation's central revenues to member associations and confederations to spend on facilities, competitions, administration and football development. Associations receive funding against agreed objectives and are expected to report on how it is used, with auditing as part of the system.

The programme matters politically as well as administratively. In a one-association, one-vote election, the way development money is distributed and controlled shapes relationships between Fifa's leadership and the associations that vote. Questions about Fifa Forward are therefore questions about transparency in the system that links Fifa's income to its electorate. Unanswered questions in this area carry more weight than they might in a narrower administrative dispute.

What the meeting tells us about Fifa's governance

Taken together, the four developments describe a dispute about process and accountability more than about any one policy. The sell-off plan has been dropped, so it is no longer a live proposal. What remains is the question of how such a plan got as far as it did without the Council's involvement, and whether the president answers to the body he chairs.

The episode also shows the limits of European influence inside Fifa. The European associations bring a large share of the game's commercial value, and they can make their objections public and loud. But the election is decided by the votes of all member associations, each counting equally. Criticism from the English and German associations can only shape the outcome if it becomes a candidate, a valid nomination and a coalition that reaches beyond Europe. The Guardian reports growing confidence that a candidate will be found. Whether that candidate can attract wider support is not known.

Finally, the meeting highlights how closely Fifa's governance is tied to the World Cup. The tournament produces the money, the money funds programmes such as Fifa Forward, and those programmes shape the relationships behind presidential elections. A dispute that began over a plan for the World Cup has turned into a debate about who should lead Fifa and how the organisation should be run.

Sources and further reading

• The Guardian: football reporting on the Fifa Council meeting and the reaction of European football associations
• Fifa: published statutes covering the roles of the Congress, the Council and the presidential election
• Fifa: published regulations and reports on the Fifa Forward development programme
• Uefa: public material on the European confederation's role within world football governance