MANCHESTER, England \u2014 Gianni Infantino came under more pressure on Friday as the Premier League and three other top European leagues called for FIFA governance reform following the failed plan\u00a0to sell stakes in the World Cup.<\/p>\n
A statement co-signed with the top leagues from Spain, Italy and Germany said soccer had \u201csuffered one of the biggest abuses of power in FIFA\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n
It accused FIFA’s president of actively promoting \u201cexploitative ideas rather than safeguarding against them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Premier League is soccer’s richest and most popular league. Its collaboration with Europe’s other leading leagues adds to the growing pressure on Infantino, who is facing the biggest crisis in his 10 years as FIFA\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n
While the leagues did not follow UEFA by specifically calling for Infantino to step down, their statement was highly critical, hitting out at FIFA’s \u201crelentless expansionism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball\u2019s longstanding foundations have, in recent years, been threatened by a fundamental governance problem,\u201d it said. \u201cNow is the moment to decide not only who will lead FIFA, but also how FIFA should be led.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is the latest\u00a0rift between leagues and Infantino, whose biggest projects have been seen as\u00a0attacks on domestic soccer\u00a0and were\u00a0successfully resisted by a backlash from European officials.<\/p>\n
The big four leagues also are members of the European Leagues network, which filed a\u00a0formal complaint against \u201cabusive\u201d FIFA\u00a0governance standards in 2023 at the European Commission in Brussels.<\/p>\n
Despite the backlash over his controversial plan to sell profits in the World Cup through a commercial subsidiary, and losing the support of many national federations, FIFA says Infantino plans to\u00a0stand again in next year\u2019s elections\u00a0for a final term in office through 2031.<\/p>\n
The leagues in England, Spain, Italy and Germany said they wanted presidential candidates to stand on a manifesto of fundamental reform.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFIFA\u2019s governance problem goes far beyond the role of one individual. The wider question is whether FIFA\u2019s president should simultaneously wield such regulatory, commercial and political power without effective checks and balances,” they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Infantino’s now ditched proposal to create a $20-billion company called the FIFA Forward Enterprise to run the\u00a0World Cup\u00a0with private investors including the Kushner family, caught the soccer world by surprise when it emerged in July.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The backlash came from both\u00a0within world soccer’s governing body\u00a0and from other federations, with some declaring they had\u00a0lost faith in Infantino\u00a0as a result.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While he has tried to quell anger, with FIFA apologizing for errors and\u00a0committing to\u00a0\u201censure they do not happen again,\u201d criticism has not gone away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The group of four leagues provides another critical voice, just days before the\u00a0influential European Football Clubs\u00a0group meets in Copenhagen, Denmark.<\/p>\n
Nov. 18 is the deadline for candidates to enter the next presidential contest, exactly four months ahead of the vote in Morocco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANCHESTER, England \u2014 Gianni Infantino came under more pressure on Friday as the Premier League and three other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-909429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}