{"id":929589,"date":"2026-10-15T23:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T23:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/929589\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T23:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T23:14:15","slug":"gianni-infantino-apologises-for-world-cup-furore-but-leaves-critics-unhappy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/929589\/","title":{"rendered":"Gianni Infantino apologises for World Cup furore but leaves critics unhappy"},"content":{"rendered":"

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has apologised to the organisation’s ruling council for making “mistakes” in his secretive investment plan for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

But Infantino did not give details sought by his toughest critics, who want him removed as the head of football’s governing body.<\/p>\n

Football officials came to the FIFA Council meeting in Zurich hoping to receive more information about two of the biggest controversies that have surrounded Infantino this year.<\/p>\n

These were his now-aborted $US4.2 billion ($6.1 billion) World Cup sell-off plan<\/a> and the Folarin Balogun red-card case at the World Cup where President Donald Trump intervened<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite Infantino’s apology, European delegates said they left the meeting disappointed about what they saw as a lack of clarity about the two disputes.<\/p>\n

“No satisfactory answers were provided,” said German Football Association president Bernd Neuendorf, one of eight UEFA delegates in the 37-member FIFA Council that Infantino chairs.<\/p>\n

Infantino provided no documents about the World Cup sell-off plan he launched and quickly dropped in July amid a fierce backlash led from Europe, according to delegates who attended the meeting.<\/p>\n

Nor did he give details to explain the Balogun red card at the World Cup or how Mr Trump intervened to help the US forward.<\/p>\n

FIFA pledges ‘full support’ for Infantino<\/a><\/p>\n

FIFA has reiterated its support for embattled president Gianni Infantino, while apologising to its member associations for the aborted bid to sell off stakes in the World Cup.<\/p>\n

However, FIFA will review whether to continue awarding the peace prize that was created to give to Trump last December.<\/p>\n

Infantino frustrated European delegates by asking for questions in writing at their only meeting before the November18 deadline to propose a candidate to oppose him at FIFA’s presidential election in March.<\/p>\n

“The man has to answer those questions. If he doesn’t answer those questions, no, he is not fit to be the FIFA president,” said Debbie Hewitt, who leads the English Football Association and is a FIFA vice-president.<\/p>\n

Hewitt said Infantino offered his apology “with some contrition”.<\/p>\n

Infantino was pressed by European football officials for written evidence about his secretive private equity plan for a World Cup commercial rights subsidiary with investor Jared Kushner, who is Mr Trump’s son-in-law.<\/p>\n

Known as FIFA Forward Enterprise, the proposal provoked a global rift and the biggest crisis of Infantino’s near 11-year presidency.<\/p>\n

Infantino did not speak to media after the meeting in Zurich but issued a video statement.<\/p>\n

“I apologised for the mistakes that we made in relation to the communication and consultation process related to the FIFA Forward Enterprise project, which then led to many consequences,” Infantino said.<\/p>\n

He noted that it was “just a proposal, so in no way a done deal”.<\/p>\n

FIFA said in a separate statement that details of the investor project “remain confidential due to ongoing legal proceedings in the United States”.<\/p>\n

The council is the main decision-making body at FIFA, with a global spread of officials who are elected by their continental soccer bodies for four-year terms.<\/p>\n

UEFA is leading attempts to remove Infantino before or at the FIFA presidential election in March.<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIFA president Gianni Infantino has apologised to the organisation’s ruling council for making “mistakes” in his secretive investment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":929590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,2490,13201,91951,596,13202,170773,13198,85,20291,21418],"class_list":["post-929589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-donald-trump","tag-fifa","tag-folarin-balogun","tag-football","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-sell-off","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-us-president","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}