Fifth FIFA Vice-President Turns on Infantino: "I Have Lost Confidence in You"
Sandor Csanyi, chief of the Hungarian football federation and a FIFA vice-president, has told Gianni Infantino he has "lost the confidence I previously placed in you" — making him the fifth of FIFA's eight vice-presidents to call for the president to stand down.
The letter, first obtained by Agence France-Presse and later seen by Reuters, criticised Infantino's "professional judgment, ethical standards and leadership" and cited "a number of controversial decisions" at this year's World Cup, including plans to outsource FIFA competitions to external parties (The Guardian).
The trigger, Csanyi wrote, was the sacking of FIFA's chief operating officer Kevin Lamour. FIFA dismissed Lamour on Monday after he broke ranks the previous month by criticising Infantino over an aborted plan to sell off shares in the World Cup to private investors. Csanyi called the "unexpected dismissal" the "final straw" (Reuters).
Csanyi sits on the 37-member FIFA council, theoretically the organisation's main decision-making body, which he says has been repeatedly overlooked by Infantino. His letter adds heavyweight European backing to a revolt that already spans the continent's other power brokers.
Four vice-presidents had already made their positions clear against Infantino: UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, Concacaf's Victor Montagliani, the Asian Football Confederation's Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al Khalifa, and Football Association chair Debbie Hewitt. Csanyi makes five.
Only three vice-presidents are still supporting Infantino: Alejandro Domínguez of Conmebol (South America), Patrick Motsepe of the Confederation of African Football, and Lambert Maltock of Oceania.
For football fans, this is a story about who controls the World Cup — the tournament billions watch every four years — and whether that control sits with the elected council or with one man. The aborted share-sale plan that started this chain of events would have put slices of the World Cup's commercial value into private hands. Lamour objected. He lost his job. Now a senior colleague is saying that decision cost Infantino his trust.
The numbers tell their own story. Five of eight vice-presidents want the president gone. Three stand by him. The council that is supposed to govern FIFA has been sidestepped. And the man at the centre of it all has not spoken publicly since his chief operating officer was shown the door.
What happens next depends on whether those five voices can turn into votes — and whether Infantino, who has survived storms before, treats this one any differently.
