FIFA President Gianni Infantino gets South American football\u2019s backing while at Abelardo de la Espriella\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n
Published On 8 Aug 20268 Aug 2026<\/p>\n
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has received support from several leading South American football figures as he visited Colombia amid the crisis engulfing world football\u2019s governing body.<\/p>\n
Infantino arrived early on Friday in the Colombian city of Cali to attend the inauguration ceremony of hard-right President Abelardo de la Espriella.<\/p>\n
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Photos released by the Colombian Football Federation show a smiling Infantino standing alongside South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) president Alejandro Dominguez and the president of the Colombian federation, Ramon Jesurun.<\/p>\n
The visit to Colombia comes as the head of world football has been embroiled in a storm following a much-criticised and ultimately abandoned plan to open the World Cup to private investment.<\/p>\n
The 56-year-old Italian-Swiss lawyer, who has been in office since 2016, declined to answer a question from an AFP news agency journalist about whether he considered FIFA\u2019s woes to be over.<\/p>\n
Later, while attending a children\u2019s football festival at a sports complex in Cali, he spoke of his \u201chappiness\u201d at being at the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a joy to be here today,\u201d the FIFA boss told dozens of children kitted out in football gear.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball is joy, football is happiness, football is unity\u201d, he said, adding that \u201cso many champions\u201d were born \u201cin this part of the world, in this part of Colombia\u201d.<\/p>\n
CONMEBOL throws backing behind Infantino<\/p>\n
Infantino, who will seek a fourth and final term in the FIFA presidential election in Rabat next March, is facing criticism, notably from European body UEFA, which on Thursday maintained its threat<\/a> to boycott the World Cup despite FIFA\u2019s withdrawal of the private investment proposal.<\/p>\n CONMEBOL, which has only 10 FIFA-affiliated members but includes iconic federations such as Argentina and Brazil, had on Thursday expressed its \u201cconcern regarding the repeated unilateral actions taken\u201d by FIFA.<\/p>\n However, when asked by a Colombian media outlet on Friday, the CONMEBOL president stated that \u201cone cannot ignore the great work\u201d done by Infantino.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must continue working for football through dialogue; it is not necessary to always agree,\u201d Dominguez said.<\/p>\n After the powerful Argentine Football Association (AFA) and the Paraguayan federation pledged their backing on Thursday, Infantino also received support on Friday from two other South American federations \u2013 Venezuela\u2019s and Ecuador\u2019s.<\/p>\n