UEFA, AFC and Concacaf Demand Gianni Infantino's Resignation Over World Cup Sell-Off Scandal

Three of football's most powerful governing bodies have jointly called for FIFA president Gianni Infantino to resign, accusing him of "trust broken through deception" over a private scheme that tried to sell a stake in the World Cup itself.

UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Concacaf — which governs the game in North and Central America and the Caribbean — signed an open letter on 10 August demanding Infantino step down. The letter was signed by UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, and Concacaf president Victor Montagliani (The Guardian).

At the centre of the crisis is Infantino's "Football Forward Enterprise," a privately backed project whose details had already emerged before the letter was published. The scheme, the confederations wrote, involved attempting to sell an interest in the FIFA World Cup — the sport's most valuable asset and the centrepiece of the global game every four years.

The letter condemned Infantino for unilaterally launching the scheme and for failing to acknowledge that he should not have done so. His subsequent apology, the three presidents wrote, appeared to lack remorse for the scheme itself rather than merely for how it was handled. They are now calling for an independent review conducted by a body entirely outside of football.

FIFA has committed to presenting a full report on the scandal to its Council — FIFA's senior decision-making body — at its next scheduled meeting. But the confederations clearly do not consider FIFA's internal processes sufficient, hence the demand for external scrutiny.

The fallout extends well beyond words. UEFA has repeatedly threatened to boycott FIFA events during the crisis, and the under-20 women's World Cup, scheduled for September 2026, could now take place without any European teams. That would mean a major youth tournament stripped of some of the strongest development programmes in the women's game.

Pressure on Infantino has been building for days. By early August, UEFA's member associations were preparing to oppose his re-election, with national associations withdrawing their letters of support (The Guardian). The AFC had released a statement on 1 August expressing "solidarity" with UEFA and Concacaf but stopped short of matching their concrete plans (Al Jazeera).

Now that solidarity has hardened into a joint demand. The three confederations have also started preliminary discussions about organising new competitions — a signal that they are preparing for a future in which FIFA's current leadership is no longer a partner they can work with.

Concacaf president Victor Montagliani is believed to be among the leading contenders to replace Infantino, should the position become vacant.

For football fans, the immediate question is what happens to the calendar. A UEFA boycott of FIFA events would affect tournaments that qualify teams for World Cups and that give young players their first taste of international football. The standoff between the bodies that run the professional game worldwide has no clean resolution in sight, and the longer it runs, the more it touches the matches people actually watch.