Gianni Infantino is losing Europe but winning Latin America. Mexico and Argentina's football associations have thrown their support behind the FIFA president just as European bodies and Concacaf — the confederation covering North and Central America and the Caribbean — pull away.

The Mexican Football Federation (FMF) issued a statement on 6 August backing Infantino and endorsing FIFA's call for institutional order, according to Reforma. The FMF also said it would evaluate the commercial plan for the World Cup that Infantino has proposed, Record reported. Reuters confirmed on 7 August that both Mexico and Argentina had publicly backed the FIFA president as the election dispute rumbled on.

The Argentina football association went further, praising Infantino for recognising and apologising for what it called his "errors," and describing his decade-long tenure as centred on worldwide soccer development and institutional strength based on a clear, stable and transparent governance model, according to the BBC.

Yet the backing from South and Central America comes against a backdrop of open revolt elsewhere. Uefa — European football's governing body — said it has lost confidence in Infantino and called his Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal a "shabby, back room, opaque deal." Uefa said its conditions had not been met after Infantino's plan was aborted, and warned that European teams could still boycott the World Cup.

The English FA sent a letter withdrawing its support. Wales, Albania and Croatia followed among individual associations pulling their backing. Concacaf described Infantino's proposal as "a symptom of leadership that has stopped putting football first" and "a recent unilateral and egregious act of poor governance and leadership" — though it stopped short of saying it had lost confidence in him entirely.

Before Infantino withdrew his proposal, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said it stood "in solidarity" with Uefa and Concacaf in opposition to the plans. Conmebol, the South American confederation, expressed concern about repeated unilateral actions taken by FIFA without resorting to dialogue or institutional mechanisms.

On the other side of the ledger, Infantino is unanimously backed by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the BBC reported.

FIFA statutes require any candidacy for the presidency to be supported by at least five member federations to be valid. Infantino was last re-elected at the 73rd FIFA Congress in Rwanda in 2023, running as the only candidate.

What makes this fracture so unusual is its geography. The alliances do not follow the usual continental lines — Concacaf and Conmebol, which share the Americas, are pulling in different directions, while Africa and parts of Latin America form an unlikely bloc with Infantino. The president has apologised for his errors, but whether that apology buys him enough votes to survive remains the open question.

For fans, the stakes are concrete: a European boycott of the World Cup would be unprecedented in the modern era. The next move belongs to the federations, and the clock is ticking.